dataset · England

NATIONAL FOREST INVENTORY WOODLAND ENGLAND 2015

Summary The NFI definition of woodland is a minimum area of 0.5 hectares under stands of trees with, or with the potential to achieve, tree crown cover of more than 20% of the ground. Areas of young trees, which have the potential to achieve a canopy cover of more than 20%, will also be interpreted as woodland and mapped. The minimum width for woodland is 20 m, although where woodlands are connected by a narrow neck of woodland less than 20 m wide, the break may be disregarded if less than 20 m

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Source details

Licence: ["There are no public access constraints to this data. Use of this data is subject to the licence identified.", "There are no public access constraints to this data. Use of this data is subject to the

Evidence quality: 44.6

Listed in data.gov.uk public catalogue API on 2026-10-16; relevance/value screened (haiku).

Metadata checked: 2026-10-14T13:20:00.000Z

What's in it

Data offered docs-verified: woodland extent polygons (woodland of 0.5 ha or greater) · woodland categories by Interpreted Forest Type (IFT) · non-woodland categories by Interpreted Open Area (IOA)
Coverage docs-verified: England · Field survey basis 2011; dataset reference date (creation) 2016-04-01
Resolution docs-verified: Minimum mapping unit 0.5 ha; minimum woodland width 20 m; boundaries interpreted from aerial orthophotography with OS MasterMap as reference
Update frequency docs-verified: Annually
Access docs-verified: Free/open; Open Government Licence (OGL) v3.0, no public access constraints

Useful for

Use cases llm-inferred: Woodland cover baseline for catchment runoff and drainage assumptions · BNG habitat baseline: woodland extent context for a site · Identifying woodland constraints near development or flood-risk sites for planning screening
Audience llm-inferred: flood consultants · drainage engineers · ecologists · planners · GIS analysts

Limitations

Constraints docs-verified: Woodland under 0.5 ha is not included in the dataset (covered by a separate sample survey) · Assumed woodland and low density areas are mapped from 0.1 ha · Map is updated to the 2011 field survey date for reporting, using remote sensing and imagery analysis rather than full resurvey · DOCS describe the primary objective as mapping Great Britain while the ENTRY region is England; confirm extent before use

Evidence

Check upstream coverage, uncertainty and licence before use. Station observations are not forecasts or design levels.