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SOUTH AFRICAN JOURNAL OF BOTANY
Volume 67, Issue 1, Pages 15-38Publisher
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DOI: 10.1016/S0254-6299(15)31087-5
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Despite many decades of vegetation-related research, the globally significant Cape Floristic Region (CFR) lacks a system of land classes that can be used as surrogates for biodiversity in conservation planning at the region-wide scale. Here we present a system of Broad Habitat Units (BHUs), suitable for planning at the 1:250 000 scale or larger. The BHUs were derived by intersecting coverages of Homogeneous Climate Zones, geology and topography in a geographic information system. A vegetation type coverage (Low and Rebelo 1996) was used to guide the classification Under certain circumstances. A total of 15 primary and 88 secondary BHUs were identified in the CFR (87 892 km(2)). Of the latter, 69 were included in the Fynbos biome, which covered 81.5% of the CFR. At the primary BHU level, the system is very similar to existing vegetation treatments. The system is a good surrogate for biodiversity pattern and process, and therefore has good potential to provide meaningful entities for systematic and strategic conservation planning in the region.
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