Forest Cover and Management

Cognised existence: Forests are contiguous areas of tree cover that function as ecological systems, carbon stores, and managed resources. Their spatial extent and type are the primary inputs for biodiversity, climate, and land management analysis.

Question: Where are forests and woodland areas and what type are they?

OSM wiki: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:landuse%3Dforest | https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:natural%3Dwood

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Realisations

OpenStreetMap — landuse=forest, natural=wood

OSM distinguishes between managed forest (landuse=forest) and natural woodland (natural=wood). In practice both are used for forested areas and coverage is globally extensive.

osmnx access

import osmnx as ox
ox.settings.cache_folder = ".cache/"
 
# Managed forest
forest = ox.features_from_place(
    "Denmark",
    tags={"landuse": "forest"}
)
 
# Natural woodland
woodland = ox.features_from_place(
    "Denmark",
    tags={"natural": "wood"}
)

Geofabrik layers

Layer	Relevant fclass values
gis_osm_landuse_a_free_1.shp	forest
gis_osm_natural_a_free_1.shp	wood

Key OSM tags

Tag	Meaning
landuse=forest	Managed / commercial forest
natural=wood	Natural or semi-natural woodland
leaf_type=broadleaved	Broadleaf / deciduous
leaf_type=needleleaved	Coniferous
leaf_type=mixed	Mixed
managed=yes/no	Whether actively managed
name=*	Forest name

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Geometry Representations

Rep ID	Source Dataset	Geometry Type	Native CRS	Suitable For	Not Suitable For
forest_osm_polygon	OSM via Geofabrik	Polygon	EPSG:4326	Area calculation, fragmentation analysis, map display	Sub-stand classification, age structure, canopy height

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Limitations

• landuse=forest vs natural=wood distinction is applied inconsistently.
• Species composition and management intensity are not reliably tagged.
• For canopy cover and forest type, consider Global Forest Watch, Copernicus Land Cover, or CORINE Land Cover.

Realised By Links

• OpenStreetMap (collection)