ACT Road Canopy Cover 2020: Vegetation Statistics for Canberra

Canberra's 2020 tree canopy coverage statistics for blocks, divisions, and road polygons, derived from LiDAR data. The dataset provides estimated percentage coverage of vegetation above 3 meters, with a total urban canopy cover estimate of 22.5% for Canberra. It was produced by the ACT Government from LiDAR captured in April 2020 and is updated every five years.

Use Cases

• Assess urban heat island mitigation potential based on canopy coverage percentages for road polygons.
• Monitor progress towards urban forest strategy targets using the 22.5% total canopy cover statistic.
• Model urban habitat connectivity based on vegetation coverage across administrative divisions.
• Plan for urban cooling and living infrastructure projects using block-level canopy estimates.

Strengths

• Derived from high-resolution (12ppm) LiDAR data captured in April 2020.
• Provides a specific total urban canopy cover estimate for Canberra: 22.5%.
• Canopy modelling was completed at a 1-meter resolution.
• Data is available in multiple geospatial formats (GEOJSON, KML, ArcGIS REST API).

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Comparison to the 2015 canopy data is not recommended due to methodological differences.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

ACT Government Geospatial Data Catalogue (ACTmapi), derived from LiDAR by Aerometrex and ACT Government.

Collection Method

LiDAR point clouds processed with ArcGIS to produce canopy footprints, then aggregated to polygon statistics.

Time Range

April 2020

Freshness

Updated every 5 years; last metadata update was 2026-06-27.

Geography

Australian Capital Territory (ACT), Canberra region.