British National Vegetation Classification


The British National Vegetation Classification or NVC is a system of classifying natural habitat types in Great Britain according to the vegetation they contain.
A large scientific meeting of ecologists, botanists, and other related professionals in the United Kingdom resulted in the publication of a compendium of five books: British Plant Communities, edited by John S. Rodwell, which detail the incidence of plant species in twelve major habitat types in the British natural environment. They are the first systematic and comprehensive account of the vegetation types of the country. They cover all natural, semi-natural and major artificial habitats in Great Britain and represent fifteen years of research by leading plant ecologists.
From the data collated from the books, commercial software products have been developed to help to classify vegetation identified into one of the many habitat types found in Great Britain – these include MATCH, TABLEFIT and MAVIS.

Terminology

The following are lists of terms used in connection with the British National Vegetation Classification, together with their meanings.

Communities, subcommunities and variants

  • A community is the fundamental unit of categorisation for vegetation.
  • A subcommunity is a distinct recognisable subdivision of a community.
  • A variant is a further subdivision of a subcommunity.

Constant species

  • A constant species in a community is a species that is always present in any given stand of vegetation belonging to that community.
For a list of the constant species, and the NVC communities in which they are present, see List of constant species in the British National Vegetation Classification.

Rare species

  • A rare species is a species which is associated with a particular community and is rare nationally.
For a list of these rare species, and the NVC communities in which they are present, see List of rare species in the British National Vegetation Classification.

Communities by category

In total there are 286 communities in the British National Vegetation Classification. They are grouped into the following major categories:
A full list of these communities, grouped into the above categories, can be found at List of plant communities in the British National Vegetation Classification.