Using CSIRO’s Urban Monitor high resolution digital photography, vegetation height strata of endemic and exotic species has been calculated and reported as an area for each height strata of 0 – 3 m, 3 – 8 m, 8 – 15 m and 15+ m. The area of grass covered areas falling into the 0 – 50 cm range has also been calculated and recorded in square metres. Vegetation coverage greater than 3 metres in height has been deemed tree canopy. The canopies have been aggregated and reported as total canopy coverage in square metres. Urban Forest Mesh Blocks have been published for the following years: 2009, 2014, 2016, 2018.

Parcels to be analysed were sourced from the 2016 Integrated Land Information Database (ILID) and supplied to CSIRO by the Department of Planning, Lands and Heritage. The results were assembled into Urban Forest features where the Urban Monitor coverage was complete.

Land parcels were assigned locational data (2016 ABS meshblocks, suburbs, local government authority (LGA) and planning sub-region) based on the parcel centroid. They were then attributed with the following land use categories: • Street Block: residential, commercial, industrial, hospital/medical, educational, and some agricultural and transport land uses • Parks: public parks, open space, private recreation grounds and State Forest • Roads: roads including road reserves • Other Infrastructure: rail, airports and utilities infrastructure • Other: land uses in transition that have not progressed sufficiently to be Street Blocks or do not conform to urban form • Rural: primary production land that does not fall in categories above • Water: ocean and other waterways, including reservoirs

The vegetation height strata areas and total canopy coverage values were calculated for each land parcel. The statistics were then aggregated by the field MB_MonitorCategory, a concatenation of the fields MB_CODE16 and MonitorCategory. Canopy coverage percentages and ranges were calculated based on the sum of the area of parcels within each MB_MonitoryCategory. As parcels with sufficient Urban Monitor coverage for Urban Forest analysis may vary between years making comparison difficult, a field called MBPercentage was added which shows the percentage of the total MB_MonitorCategory area (MBArea) covered by parcels with Urban Forest values for that year. Corresponding MBPercentage values for all published years were also added to inform users.

NOTE: As mesh block attributes were assigned based on parcel centroid, aggregated mesh block boundaries based on the parcels may not match ABS mesh block boundaries, and MBAreas will not match ABS mesh block areas. If further aggregation is required, contact DPLH to discuss data provision.