Preserving a Comprehensive Vegetation Knowledge Base--An Evaluation of Four Historical Soviet Vegetation Maps of the Western Pamirs (Tajikistan)

We edited, redrew, and evaluated four unpublished historical vegetation maps of the Western Pamirs (Tajikistan) by the Soviet geobotanist Okmir E. Agakhanjanz. These maps cover an area of 5,188 km2 and date from 1958 to 1960. The purpose of this article is to make the historic vegetation data availa...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2016-02, Vol.11 (2), p.e0148930-e0148930
Main Authors: Vanselow, Kim André, Samimi, Cyrus, Breckle, Siegmar-W
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Analysis
Astragalus Plant - classification
Biology and Life Sciences
Climate change
Demographic aspects
Digital Elevation Models
Digitization
Earth Sciences
Ecology
Ecology and Environmental Sciences
Ecosystem
Ecosystems
Environmental changes
Flowers & plants
Forests
Generalized linear models
Geological Phenomena
Humans
Knowledge Bases
Land cover
Land use
Plant species
Poaceae - classification
Polygons
Precipitation
Protection and preservation
Science
Studies
Tajikistan
Trees - classification
Trends
Vegetation
Vegetation zones
Water Supply
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Summary:We edited, redrew, and evaluated four unpublished historical vegetation maps of the Western Pamirs (Tajikistan) by the Soviet geobotanist Okmir E. Agakhanjanz. These maps cover an area of 5,188 km2 and date from 1958 to 1960. The purpose of this article is to make the historic vegetation data available to the scientific community and thus preserve a hitherto non available and up to now neglected or forgotten data source with great potential for studies on vegetation and ecosystem response to global change. The original hand-drawn maps were scanned, georeferenced, and digitized and the corresponding land cover class was assigned to each polygon. The partly differing legends were harmonized and plant names updated. Furthermore, a digital elevation model and generalized additive models were used to calculate response curves of the land cover classes and to explore vegetation-topography relationships quantitatively. In total, 2,216 polygons belonging to 13 major land cover classes were included that are characterized by 252 different plant species. As such, the presented maps provide excellent comparison data for studies on vegetation and ecosystem change in an area that is deemed to be an important water tower in Central Asia.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0148930