Flora of the Korean Peninsula Phase II

Institutions outside of the Korean peninsula hold much of the historical, legacy biodiversity information on the region. With nearly 140,000 specimens including the data on specimens stored at foreign herbaria, there is a comprehensive chronological, historical, taxonomic, and geographic coverage of Korean plants including those from inaccessible areas, such as North Korea. Despite an abundance of biodiversity information in collections, there is a pressing need to make this data accessible and integrated sufficiently to foster query-based inquiries to assist with regional conservation priorities.

As part of the first phase of the project, a dataset of 15,000 SNUA specimens has been compiled. To enable usability, this dataset set will go through the process of validation and data cleaning, including a retrospective georeferencing, until March 2019. Other datasets are under preparation and a selection of photographs are currently presented on the institute´s website.

Funded by Ministry of the Environment, Government of Japan