Greater Sydney Canopy Access 2022: Vegetation Cover in Hexagonal Grids

Greater Sydney Canopy Access 2022 provides information on community access to tree canopy cover across Greater Sydney. The dataset was created by the NSW Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure from aerial imagery captured between October 2022 and February 2023. It consists of vegetation cover data in a hexagonal vector grid format for each Local Government Area and the entire region.

Use Cases

• Identify local areas of low tree canopy cover for targeted policy interventions based on the hexagonal grid data.
• Prioritize action to achieve equitable community access to canopy benefits based on the localized canopy cover metrics.
• Reference localised canopy cover levels for urban greening projects based on the height-stratified vegetation data.

Strengths

• Data is derived from aerial imagery captured at 16,000ft AGL between 3 October 2022 and 20 February 2023.
• Tree canopy is classified as all vegetation greater than 3 meters, providing a clear, height-based definition.
• Dataset is provided under a CC-BY-4.0 license, allowing for broad reuse.

Limitations

• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.
• The methodology notes that not all grass areas have been identified in their entirety due to data limitations.
• Hexagon cells at the edge of the capture area may not accurately reflect ground canopy cover.

Provenance

Source

NSW Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure

Collection Method

Derived from a height-stratified vegetation cover dataset acquired by ArborCarbon via fixed-wing aircraft.

Time Range

Data captured between 3 October 2022 and 20 February 2023.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-13 07:45:06.209622; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Greater Sydney Region, Australia.