1.0

Location of special habitats (wetlands, silcrete patches, forests) for the Cape Agulhas, De Hoop Management Area, Overstrand, Drakenstein Municipality, Swartland, Swellendam and Theewaterskloof Municipalities.

Data Origin: Botanical Society of SA (Cape Lowlands Renosterveld Project 2003) / CapeNature (based on Surveys & Mapping wetlands data) / Institute for Plant Conservation (Agulhas Plain Conservation Plan 1999) / Freshwater Research Unit, UCT (C.A.P.E. Project, 1999)

Capture Source: Botanical Society of SA, Dept of Land Affairs: Surveys & Mapping, Institute for Plant Conservation

Compilation of GIS data layer from various sources by A. von Hase (July 2004):

1. Silcrete patches were derived from the vegetation map generated as part of the Cape Lowlands Renosterveld Project (2003). Only the remaining portions of the habitats were included.

2. Wetlands were obtained using different methods for the Overberg area and the Agulhas Plain:

a) Overberg area: Data from two sources were combined for use in the Cape Lowlands Renosterveld Project – the WCNCB sensitive wetlands GIS layer and a C.A.P.E. freshwater component (1999) GIS layer of wetlands. No metadata was

available for the C.A.P.E. layer, although it matches wetlands on 1:50 000 topographic mapsheets (Surveys & Mapping, Dept of Land Affairs). Dams were removed from both layers and the type of wetland called erosion was also removed.

(Note: The data are not comprehensive – many wetlands that are present on the ground are not available in a mapped format. While more detailed wetland data layers do exist for some parts of the Western Cape, they are very sparse and

discontinuous.)

b) Agulhas plain: Wetlands were captured as part of the field-mapping done for the Agulhas Plain conservation plan’s vegetation map.

3. Similarly, forest patches were field-mapped (see 2b above) across the Agulhas Plain.

For all special habitats: only the remaining portions of these habitats (as identified by overlaying special habitats with the natural vegetation layer dd_agul_vegmap) were extracted and are displayed in the current layer.

AVAILABLE DOCUMENTATION

– Von Hase, A. et al., 2003. A Fine-scale Conservation Plan for Cape Lowlands Renosterveld. Conservation Unit, Report 2/03. Botanical Society of SA, Cape Town. Available on http://bgis.sanbi.org

– Cole, N. et al., 2000. Framework for a Conservation Plan for the Agulhas Plain, Cape Floristic Region, South Africa. IPC Report completed as part of C.A.P.E.

– CapeNature Sensitive wetlands metadata

– Van Nieuwehuizen, D. et al., 1999. C.A.P.E. Freshwater Reports

SANS 1878

FGDC-STD-001-1998