Monitoring the restoration of natural vegetation at the site of the former Kakhovka reservoir

Study Extent

The dataset contains data on 42 taxa of flora that will be restored on the site of the former Kakhovka Reservoir in 2023 on the territory of the right-bank floodplain of the Dnipro River in the vicinity of the village of Maryanske, Dniporpetrovsk region, Ukraine. It should be recognized that despite the incredibly important monitoring work carried out by the authors of the YouTube channel, they work incognito and the analysis of the material they collected had to be done after the fact, based on the materials of the videos they made public.

Sampling

Identification of plant taxa was carried out according to diagnostic features that can be determined while watching video materials. Definitions were carried out by 4 independent experts, in case of disagreement in the definition of taxa, data on the highest jointly determined taxonomic rank was entered into the database. In case of doubt about the correctness of the definition, the taxon was marked as cf (from the Latin confer – "compare"). Open source intelligence (OSINT) analytical techniques were used to determine the coordinates of the shooting locations of each of the video materials, which allow to determine the location of the video shooting location by calculating distances and angles between visible landmarks, comparing with satellite images of the landscape at the time of video capture, etc.

Quality Control

The authors are fully responsible for the accuracy and quality of data provided within the dataset.

Method steps

1. Visual identification of species to certain taxonomic level.
2. Mutual agreement on the results of identification.
3. Georeferencing.
4. Organising of dataset according to the Darwin Core standards.

The dataset consists of records of plants.

1. Plantae
   rank: kingdom
2. Tracheophyta
   rank: phylum
3. Liliopsida
   rank: class
4. Magnoliopsida
   rank: class

The dataset covers the territory of former Kakhovka reservoir and sorrounding areas in Dnipropertovsk administrative region of Ukraine.