EVC Group Maps

Vegetation Home

The Biodiversity Interactive Map on the DSE website (external link) allows users to display a number of vegetation themes for any area of Victoria - including Ecological Vegetation Classes (EVCs), 1750 EVCs, broad EVC Groups and Bioregional Conservation Status of EVCs. Users can then print out the maps they have created. The Biodiversity Interactive Map is regularly updated as new information becomes available.

Victoria's native vegetation communities are being progressively mapped in a statewide program coordinated by The Parks, Flora and Fauna Division of the Department of Sustainability and Environment. Vegetation mapping in Victoria has been undertaken at a range of scales, including the overview Broad Vegetation Type (BVT) mapping and the more detailed Ecological Vegetation Class (EVC) mapping. The maps provided here show the major groups of EVC classes that occur in this region. The detailed EVC mapping is available from the Parks, Flora and Fauna Division.

Ecological Vegetation Classes (EVCs) are the basic mapping units used for biodiversity planning and conservation assessment at landscape, regional and broader scales in Victoria. They are derived from large-scale forest type and plant community mapping and are based on the following types of information:

• plant communities and forest types (including species and structural information)
• ecological information relevant to the species that comprise the communities (including life-form and reproductive strategies)
• information that describes variation in the physical environment (including aspect, elevation, geology and soils, landform, rainfall, salinity and climatic zones.
  

Each EVC represents one or more plant (floristic) communities that occur in similar types of environments. The floristic communities within each EVC tend to show similar ecological responses to environmental factors such as disturbance (e.g. wildfire). As well as representing plant communities, EVCs can be used as a guide to the distribution of individual species and groups of species, including animals and lower plants such as mosses and liverworts. (Commonwealth of Australia and State of Victoria, 1999)

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