Forestry England Subcompartment Database for Land Management

Forestry England's Subcompartment Database (SCDB) is the authoritative geospatial data source for the organization's forest estate. It supports recording, monitoring, analysis, and reporting on forest extent, structure, composition, health, and management. The database is maintained by the Forestry Commission to meet national and international reporting commitments.

Use Cases

• Analyze trends in forest extent and species composition using subcompartment boundaries and land-use classifications.
• Model carbon sequestration potential by linking subcompartment data on species and yield class to biomass estimates.
• Support forest design planning by assessing current forest structure and health status across the estate.
• Monitor compliance with sustainable management policies using data on land-use and habitat composition.

Strengths

• Serves as the authoritative national-level data source for Forestry England's estate management.
• Designed to support international reporting commitments on climate change and carbon sequestration.
• Covers core inventory areas including forest stock, land-uses, property deeds, and managed roads.

Limitations

• Specific row counts, column details, and temporal coverage are not provided.
• The technical description mentions challenges in providing consistent national-level data, indicating potential data integration issues.
• Sample data and file formats are unavailable for preliminary inspection.

Provenance

Source

Forestry Commission (Forestry England)

Collection Method

Administrative geospatial and inventory data collected for forest estate management.

Freshness

Last updated metadata indicates 2026-04-07, but actual data update frequency is null.

Geography

Forestry England land holdings across England.