Arctic Vegetation Archive
Addressing biodiversity questions in the Arctic is a challenging task because there are large gaps in the information on vegetation patterns, which are essential to quantify species-environmental relationships and make ecosystem-level predictions. Data from a large body of vegetation plot data that have been collected across the Arctic during the past century would provide a key missing link required to derive predictive models of future distributions under different climate-change scenarios. The goal of the International Arctic Vegetation Database is to unite and harmonize the vegetation data from the Arctic Tundra Biome for use in developing a panarctic vegetation classification and for use in research on climate and biodiversity. This open access database would be the first to represent an entire global biome.
The Arctic Vegetation Archive (AVA) is a circumpolar effort to assemble Arctic vegetation plot data into a publically accessible web‐based archive and promote its application to northern issues, including a pan‐Arctic vegetation classification framework (Walker 2014). The project is endorsed by the Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna (CAFF) and was launched in 2013 with an international workshop in Krakow (Walker et al. 2013). During this meeting two prototype databases were initiated for Greenland and Alaska.
The Alaska-AVA project was organized during a workshop in Boulder, Colorado (Walker et al. 2014) and is part of the Alaska Arctic Geoecological Atlas housed at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Ongoing progress in developing the Alaska-AVA and other regional archives in Canada, Greenland, and Russia is summarized in proceedings volumes from a series of international AVA workshops (see links below). More information on the AVA is also available on the CAFF's Flora Group website.
In 2025, a workshop was held in Boulder, Colorado, to organize a new initative, the Circumpolar Arctic Vegetation Science Initiative (CAVSI), endorsed by the International Conference on Arctic Research Planning (ICARP IV) and designed to broaden and extend international collaboration in planning for the next 10 years in Arctic vegetation research. Focus areas include (1) Creation of an Arctic Vegetation Observing Network (AVON); (2) Development of protocols for field sampling and data archives for vegetation-plot and map data; and (3) Updated Arctic vegetation species checklists, habitat-type and plant-community checklists, and map legends at a hierarchy of spatial scales. The workshop will lead to the development of a CAVSI white paper and science plan for the 2026–2035 decade to help prioritize U.S. and ICARP IV Arctic terrestrial research topics.
Past Workshop Proceedings
- Walker, D.A. and Peirce, J.L. (eds.). 2024. Proceedings of the Arctic Vegetation Archive and Classification Workshop, Arctic Science Summit Week 2023, Vienna, Austria, 18 February. CAFF Proceeding Series Report, Akureyri, Iceland. (PDF)
- Walker, D.A. (ed.) 2019. Arctic Vegetation Archive and Arctic Vegetation Classification: Proceedings and abstracts from two workshops 2017 and 2019. CAFF Proceeding Series Report September 2019. Akureyri, Iceland. (PDF)
- Walker, D.A. 2014. Toward a pan-Arctic vegetation archive and classification: Two recent workshops. IAVS Bulletin, 2014/1, pp. 12-16, [Newsletter] International Association for Vegetation Science. (PDF).
- Walker, D.A. (ed.). 2014. CAFF Proceedings Report 11. Alaska Arctic Vegetation Archive (AVA) Workshop, Boulder, Colorado, USA, October 14-16, 2013, Akureyri, Iceland. (PDF).
- Walker, D.A., Breen, A.L., Raynolds, M.K. and Walker, M.D. (eds.). 2013. CAFF Proceedings Report #10. Arctic Vegetation Archive (AVA) Workshop, Krakow, Poland, April 14-16, 2013, Akureyri, Iceland. (PDF)