ACKDAT: a digital spatial database of distributions of South African plant species and species assemblages

The fieldwork that underpins John Acocks’ work on the Veld Types of South Africa, was recorded in a set of field notebooks, which were preserved after Acocks’ retirement. These are adequately geo-referenced to allow the construction of a relational database linking more than 7 000 species’ presence, abundance and site location data at more than 3 000 sites throughout much of South Africa. The database is described with reference to data quality, representivity and spatial precision. Some appropriate and inappropriate types of uses of the data are illustrated.