INBOVeg - 1995 Vegetation records from the "Het Aardgat" nature reserve in Flanders, Belgium

Sampling event Observation
Latest version published by Research Institute for Nature and Forest (INBO) on Aug 18, 2026 Research Institute for Nature and Forest (INBO)
Publication date:
August 18, 2026
License:
CC-BY 4.0

Download the latest version of this resource data as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A) or the resource metadata as EML or RTF:

Data as a DwC-A file download 538 records in English (116 KB) - Update frequency: not planned
Metadata as an EML file download in English (10 KB)
Metadata as an RTF file download in English (9 KB)

Description

This dataset was collected as part of a thesis study in association with the university KU Leuven, investigating the groundwater-related vegetative ecology in the "Het Aardgat" nature reserve in Tienen, Flanders. The data has been stored in INBOVEG, the INBO vegetation record database (also part of the "Global Index of Vegetation-plot databases" and the "European Vegetation Archive") and is being published here in its entirety.The GBIF dataset is the same as the data in INBOVeg. The relevant identification code is 'IV2014062611241139'.Details of the sampling protocol are given in the associated (Dutch) cited report, De Smet, 1996.Some of this data has been previously published on GBIF as part of the FLORABANK1 bulkdata publication (https://doi.org/10.3897/phytokeys.12.2849) at either a 1 km² or a 4 km² scale, here they are published as specific locations (with XXXm² uncertainty). No coordinate uncertainty was noted in the accompanying report, so 310m² is only an estimate. The coordinates were originally recorded in the Belgian Lambert system, but they are given here as WGS84 coordinates.To allow anyone to use this dataset, we have released the data to the public domain under a Creative Commons Attribution waiver (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). We would appreciate, however, if you read and follow these norms for data use (http://www.inbo.be/en/norms-for-data-use) and provide a link to the original dataset whenever possible. If you use these data for a scientific paper, please cite the dataset following the applicable citation norms and/or consider us for co-authorship. We are always interested to know how you have used or visualised the data, or to provide more information, so please contact us via the contact information provided in the metadata or via opendata@inbo.be.

Data Records

The data in this sampling event resource has been published as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A), which is a standardized format for sharing biodiversity data as a set of one or more data tables. The core data table contains 538 records.

1 extension data tables also exist. An extension record supplies extra information about a core record. The number of records in each extension data table is illustrated below.

Event (core)
538
Occurrence 
7464

This IPT archives the data and thus serves as the data repository. The data and resource metadata are available for download in the downloads section. The versions table lists other versions of the resource that have been made publicly available and allows tracking changes made to the resource over time.

Versions

The table below shows only published versions of the resource that are publicly accessible.

Rights

Researchers should respect the following rights statement:

The publisher and rights holder of this work is Research Institute for Nature and Forest (INBO). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY 4.0) License.

GBIF Registration

This resource has been registered with GBIF, and assigned the following GBIF UUID: 3b60d9d7-36de-40af-a390-65b8f9f4fff6.  Research Institute for Nature and Forest (INBO) publishes this resource, and is itself registered in GBIF as a data publisher endorsed by Belgian Biodiversity Platform.

Keywords

Samplingevent; Observation

Contacts

Els De Smet
  • Originator ●
  • Point Of Contact
Maria-Rose Eves Down
  • Metadata Provider
INBO
Brussel
BE
J Van Assche
  • Reviewer
KULeuven

Project Data

Responsible, effective management plans and actions in nature reserves require a thorough understanding of the ecological relationships in those areas. This thesis study was carried out in order to deepen such knowledge regarding the ‘Het Aardgat’ nature reserve in Tienen, Flanders, Belgium. This included a partial vegetation inventory of the area, with extra attention paid to the relationship between groundwater-dependent plants and the hydrology of the area.

Title Hydrological and soil chemical site characteristics of the vegetation in the ‘Het Aardgat’ nature reserve in Tienen (Original Dutch title "Hydrologische en bodemkundige standplaatskarakteristieken van de vegetatie in het NR 'Het Aardgat' in Tienen")
Funding n:a
Study Area Description n/a
Design Description n/a

The personnel involved in the project:

Els De Smet
  • Principal Investigator
J Van Assche
  • Reviewer

Sampling Methods

3 x 3 m sample plots were marked out and all vegetation within was checked against a species list of 82 groundwater-related plant species. Species presence and cover/abundance were recorded. The layer of the vegetation was also recorded, and is noted under the 'occurrenceRemarks' column. Hydrological and soil chemistry measurements were also taken and recorded, though these abiotic measurements are not presented in this GBIF data publication. A simplified Braun-Blanquet scale was used to estimate the coverage/abundance of the relevant species in the sampling plots, with 5 different coverage classes: 1 (0.1-20%); 2 (20.1-40%); 3 (40.1-60%); 4 (60.1-80%) and 5 (80.1-100%).

Study Extent Due to the research focus on groundwater-related vegetation, not all species were recorded. The list of 82 relevant species is given in the related publication (De Smet, 1995): it is important to note that, unless it was on the list, the lack of an observation of a species does not necessarily mean that it was not present. It is possible that in a future update, these absences will also be detailed, but this is not currently foreseen in project time.
Quality Control Plant identifications were carried out by a trained expert, and checked by another.

Method step description:

  1. n/a

Bibliographic Citations

  1. De Smet, E. (1996). Hydrologische en bodemkundige standplaatskarakteristieken van de vegetatie. Thesis, KULeuven.

Additional Metadata

Maintenance Description This study was carried out and completed some years ago, and although no update is planned, if it proves possible then the absence records will be added in the future.
Alternative Identifiers 3b60d9d7-36de-40af-a390-65b8f9f4fff6
https://ipt.inbo.be/resource?r=inboveg-aardgat-tienen