The Forestry Commission's Sub-compartment Database (SCDB) is the authoritative geospatial inventory for recording, monitoring, and reporting on the UK's national forest estate. It supports economic, environmental, and social decision-making for government, industry, and the public. The dataset is managed by the Scottish Government SpatialData.gov.scot and was last updated in July 2026.
Use Cases
- Monitor trends in forest extent, structure, and composition based on the inventory's recording and analysis role.
- Support evidence-based policy development for climate change and carbon sequestration based on international reporting commitments.
- Analyze land use and species distribution for forest design and business planning based on sub-compartment definitions.
- Address detailed information requests from industry and NGOs regarding the forest estate's status and management.
Strengths
- Serves as the authoritative data source for the UK Forestry Commission's national estate, supporting core business decisions.
- Designed to meet national and international forest-related reporting responsibilities and policy development needs.
- Covers foundational inventory aspects including forest stock, land-uses, land ownership deeds, and managed roads.
Limitations
- Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
- Row count and file format are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
- Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.
Provenance
- Source
- Forestry Commission, provided via Scottish Government SpatialData.gov.scot
- Collection Method
- Administrative geospatial inventory and database management for the national forest estate.
- Freshness
- Last updated 2026-07-08 13:31:49.053928; freshness should be verified.
- Geography
- Great Britain (GB)