Is what you see what you get? Visual vs. measured assessments of vegetation condition

Abstract

An important step in the conservation of biodiversity is to identify what exists, its quantity and its quality (i.e. condition). This can be a daunting task at the landscape-scale, so vegetation communities are often used as surrogates for biodiversity. Satellite imagery has improved our ability to rapidly measure vegetation parameters but the need for calibration still requires rapid and cost-effective on-ground condition assessment. Some management agencies address this need by using visual condition assessments, with unknown consequences for the different purposes of condition data. It is therefore vital to examine the comparability of visual and systematic condition assessment methods to..