City of Melbourne Tree Canopy Polygons from 2019 Aerial Imagery

ArborCarbon derived spatial polygons representing all vegetation over 3 meters tall across the City of Melbourne from 2019 airborne multispectral imagery. The data includes geometry columns for mapping and is provided in multiple GIS formats including SHP and GEOJSON.

Use Cases

• Calculate urban green space coverage by analyzing the spatial extent of canopy polygons across city districts.
• Model vegetation height stratification using the classification of all features >3m above ground as canopy.
• Assess urban forest health trends by comparing these 2019 canopy polygons with temporal updates.
• Integrate geometry column data with other urban planning layers for heat island or biodiversity analysis.

Strengths

• Data derived from high-resolution 11-band multispectral imagery optimized for vegetation detection.
• Polygons represent a complete classification of vegetation >3m tall for the entire City of Melbourne.
• Available in multiple interoperable GIS formats including SHP, JSON, CSV, and GEOJSON.

Limitations

• Excludes vegetation located on building rooftops, potentially undercounting total canopy in dense urban areas.
• Based on a single year's imagery (2019), limiting analysis of canopy change over time without complementary datasets.

Provenance

Source

City of Melbourne Open Data, derived by ArborCarbon.

Collection Method

High-resolution airborne multispectral imagery from the ArborCam system, geometrically corrected and orthorectified using 2018 aerial imagery and a Digital Terrain Model.

Time Range

2019

Freshness

Last updated in March 2026, though the underlying imagery and classification are from 2019.

Geography

City of Melbourne, Australia.