The Greater Sydney Canopy Access 2022 dataset provides information on community access to tree canopy cover in Greater Sydney. It enables quick reference to localised canopy cover and identification of local areas of low or high tree canopy cover to target policy interventions and projects. It can be used to prioritise action to achieve equitable access to the benefits of canopy and trees for the community.

The dataset was created to enable broad availability and use of the Greater Sydney Region Tree Canopy 2022 Dataset. It consists of vegetation cover (i.e. canopy cover and green cover) in hexagonal vector grid format, for each Local Government Area in Greater Sydney and the whole Greater Sydney Region. It is derived from a height stratified vegetation cover dataset (i.e. Greater Sydney Region Tree Canopy 2022) acquired by ArborCarbon over Greater Sydney at 16,000ft AGL from fixed wing aircraft between 3 October 2022 and 20 February 2023.

In the dataset, "tree canopy" is classified as all vegetation greater than 3m. "All vegetation" includes vegetation, including tree canopy, greater than 0m. Note: due to data limitations, not all grass areas have been identified in their entirety.

The dataset can be used to understand community access to canopy at the local scale. It should not be used to calculate canopy cover at Local Government Area (LGA) or suburb scale. Summary statistics for canopy cover at these scales is available on the NSW Government SEED portal (see methodology report).

The hexagon cells at the edge of capture area may not accurately reflect the canopy cover on the ground because the canopy cover was calculated across the whole hexagon and not just the part of the hexagon that canopy was recorded in.