Vegetation Managment Database - Where can I put this program?
Ken Gunn
Late last year a friend and I finished and "released" a program we
named the Vegetation Management Database. I say "released" as this
amounted to a page in the IFFA (Indigenous Flora and Fauna Association
(Victoria Australia)) magazine "Indigenotes"at the end of last year.
I am interested in making this program available via some site on the
net. The program was intended to be shareware, and had a 100$
registration fee to use it beyond 5 site and 50 distribution records.
This fee probably put a lot of people off, that and the fact that it
was written in dBase IV for DOS. Unfortunately the cost of
development to us necessitated this fee, if we were to be able to
continue development on a windows platform.
To cut a long story short, I would like to see this program available,
if only to promote ideas for similar types of programs aimed at
supporting re vegetation planners / native vegetation managers etc.
Since releasing the program, we have had very little interest shown
from the "reveg industry". This was a great disappointment to both of
us, particularly since the development ran for a number of years, and
many of the problems relating to species naming, synonyms, renaming
etc had been resolved.
Currently the program is only available from the Melbourne PC User
Groups bulletin board as two files, each of about 1 meg in size.
I have to stress that this was never a project to make any of the
participants ( and there were a number along the way) wealthy. We had
hoped to make enough to cover the development tools ( we didn't) and
some more for future development. This program is really specific to
Victoria Australia, as it has a species list for that state built in,
so it's of use to people elsewhere for ideas and as an eg. as much as
anything else.
This year has brought new projects for both of us, and it seems a
shame to see such a large project sit idle and wasted. I would like
anyone interested in programming for this vital and developing area
(conserving the flora) - to take / borrow / use - learn from some of
the ideas we have built into the program. For a first "reveg
management tool" (I've seen one other - used by the Victorian
Government) I still believe it to be a fairly sophisticated program.
Any suggestions of what I can do with this program - ie. sites which
might be interested in holding the program would be most welcome.
Below is a copy of the blurb used last year to promote / announce the
"VMD".
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This program simplifies the process of recording;
- the characteristics of a site;
- what plant populations occur on that site, and
- what events (eg. fire), or management actions (eg. weed control) are
undertaken at that site.
Using the system is simple.
1. Enter a site to the site database.
2. Move to the species database to tag those species found at the site
concerned from a list of the species of Victoria.
3. Select the option "Tags to Distribution"
The tagged species are then written to the population (or
distribution) file. Each tagged species will become a population
record of that species occurring at the nominated site.
For each population record, you may record abundance values,
observation date/s (first and last), assign a management code and make
ongoing notes about each population. This allows the user to keep a
history of observations on any population.
You can flag populations that are suitable for seed collection. Weed
control planning, and seed collection scheduling can be much
simplified through use of the various reporting routines available.
Reporting options are well developed. Extensive filtering facilities
are provided to ensure that the user has a great deal of control over
which subset of records is selected, prior to choosing the particular
report format desired for printout. This ensures that a great number
of queries may be answered.
Reports may be printed to disk to be imported to other documents.
This should facilitate communications between those interested in or
dealing with particular plant populations.
To date it has been difficult to keep and organize records of field
observations. Paper based systems do not lend themselves to the sorts
of enquiries that may need to be answered, eg.
- What weed species occur at abundance values >4 at this site?
- On which sites are members of the family Orchidaceae found in
abundances >1, with a last observation date prior to 01/01/92?
- Which populations on the nominated group of sites have seed ripe
during month 1 (January)?
If you have existing quadrat data (from Dept Cons and Nat Resources),
you will be able to enter and USE this data as a baseline set of
records. Once entered to the system, you can run the "on which sites
does this species occur ?", and the "what species occur on this /
these sites" questions without any further surveying. This is an
opportunity to turn that existing flora survey into some useful
workable forms.
It is intended that this tool provide the capability for all managers
of our remnant flora to easily record useful data. This should
facilitate the planning process when devising management strategies to
overcome particular identified problems.
OBTAIN FROM
This is shareware - that is try before you buy. To obtain a copy,
send $10 (to cover disks/postage etc.) to
OR, copy a friends disks. You can install multiple times from a
single set of disks. Unregistered the program is limited to 5 site
records and up to 50 distribution records.
To register, run the "Create Registration Form" option with your
printer on. Send this form to the above address with $100 to receive
a registration number to run one installation.
CUSTOMISATION
Additional developments or customisation, implementation support or
any enquiries, please call
INSTALLATION
Place one of the two disks into your floppy drive, change to that
drive and type "install" - press enter. You will be prompted for the
second disk. An icon is provided to add to program manager if you
wish to run under windows.
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
RAM
A 386 or better is recommended with a minimum of 4 meg of RAM.
(Speed would be the main problem with a 286)
DISK
The program requires 6 megabytes on disk.
This figure includes
3,400k for the C:\flora subdir (reference files),
2,000k for the C:\florprog subdir (program files), and
400k for the C:\fdata subdir (empty dataset).
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5,800k Total disk space required. -> 6 MEGS
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Any suggestions, please feel free to email me at the above, or post to
this news group.
00
0||0 Ken Gunn
0||0 o o Horticulturist
|| | | ken...@melbpc.org.au - Seddon Melbourne Australia