Objective-Based Vegetation Monitoring (OBVM)

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) manages approximately 1.4 million acres of land across 42 Wildlife Management Areas (WMA) and Wildlife Environmental Areas (WEA) in Florida. During a time when much of the state's sublime lands and essential resources are lost to urbanization, this responsibility is paramount. To restore, develop, and maintain healthy ecosystems in each area, Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute (FWRI) Upland Habitat scientists collaborated with the FWC Division of Habitat and Species Conservation (HSC) to develop specialized techniques for an Objectives-Based Vegetation Management (OBVM) approach to land restoration and management.

The OBVM program emphasizes 1) maintaining and restoring natural plant communities towards predetermined desired conditions; 2) monitoring progress towards that goal; then 3) adapting management practices and prescriptions to reach desired land conditions; and 4) providing decision-support data to managers at a management unit level. This approach enables science-based land management decisions by setting clear, measurable objectives for existing and historic natural communities, taking management actions towards achieving those objectives, and methodically monitoring vegetation response to specific land management actions at set intervals.

In general, actively managed communities are those that are fire dependent and can be managed effectively with mechanical treatments and prescribed burns. Examples are mesic, wet, or scrubby flatwoods; sandhill; scrub; wet or dry prairie; depressions; or tidal marshes. We differentiate these ecosystems from communities like hardwood and floodplain swamps and hardwood upland forests that are not managed or manipulated on a landscape scale. General areas of focus include community or ecosystem type, over-story cover, herbaceous cover, pine-stand density, non-pine stem density, and sub-canopy density. Additional attributes are also monitored according to the unique local conditions of each WMA or WEA. Once this vegetative data is collected and passes strict quality assurance standards, the data is used to assist FWC land managers in reaching the desired future conditions (DFCs) for each WMA or WEA.

The OBVM program is based on the theory of adaptive management. Ecosystem structure is first summarized and then compared to DFCs. Over time, trends reveal vegetation response to management practices. If the vegetative structure in a given WMA or WEA does not correspond with the vegetative structure that is most desirable, land managers can use OBVM data to adapt their land management strategies and thus better reach their land management goals. In short, OBVM provides measurable data that reflects the cause and effect relationships between land management strategies and resulting land conditions. Ecosystem assessment and land management feedback help FWC protect and maintain its magnificent public lands.

Key concepts that make OBVM unique include: 1) defining measurable management objectives for long-term natural community management, 2) tying management objectives and actions to a permanent footprint, and 3) systematically tracking progress towards management objectives.

Reference: Guide to the Natural Communities of Florida 2010 Edition (PDF 19 MB)

Biological Administrator Kent Williges and Biological Scientist
George Otto in the field conducting an OBVM data collection workshop.