An expert system for the conservation of Atlantic estuarine wet meadows: application to a Natura 2000 site in France

Vegetation is a good indicator that can help better manage and conserve nature. It is also essential for characterizing habitats that represent an essential component of European nature conservation policy, especially within the Natura 2000 network. However, identifying plant communities is a complex operation partly because of the lack of available tools to identify them accurately. This obstacle is particularly noticeable when we talk about diverse plant communities like meadows. This study aims to develop an expert system to apply formalized classifications of Atlantic estuarine wet meadow community types in the Natura 2000 site ‘Estuaire de la Loire’. The tool we created automatically assigns vegetation plots to the units of the French vegetation typology. It allows us to ensure the classification of the European habitat types (EUNIS and the Annex I of the EU Habitats Directive) with 91% accuracy. This expert system was applied to a dataset of 1898 vegetation plots from the study area. It allowed us to link 718 vegetation plots to 4 habitats of wet meadows including the habitat of community interest 1410 ‘Mediterranean salt meadows (Juncetalia maritimi)’. Using this approach, we have also defined the characteristic species of these habitats at a local scale. This tool enables the fast, objective and replicable identifications of wet meadows which are necessary to map or monitor the habitat type (sensu Habitat Directive). The method applied in this study can be easily adapted in other sites and for other habitat types.