This dataset contains maps of woody vegetation extent and woody foliage projective cover (FPC) for New South Wales at 5 metre resolution. <br /><br /> Woody vegetation is a key feature of our landscape and an integral part of our society. We value it because it contributes to the economy, protects the land, provides us with recreation, and gives refuge to the unique and diverse range of fauna that we regard so highly. Yet it poses a significant threat to us in times of fire and storm. So information about trees is vital for a range of business, property planning, monitoring, risk assessment, and conservation activities. <br /><br /> The datasets are: <br /> Woody vegetation extent. A presence/absence map showing areas of trees and shrubs, taller than two metres, that are visible at the resolution of the imagery used in the analysis. This shows the location, extent, and density of foliage cover for stands of woody vegetation, enabling identification of small features such as trees in paddocks and scattered woodlands through to the largest expanses of forest in the State. Woody extent products contain 'bcu' in the file name.<br /><br /> Woody foliage projective cover (FPC). FPC is a measure of the proportion of the ground area covered by foliage (or photosynthetic tissue) held in a vertical plane and is a measure of canopy density. Woody FPC products contain 'bcv' in the file name. <br /><br /> Both mosaics and tiles are available, along with a shape file that identifies the location of the tiles.

Vegetation Fractional Cover represents the exposed proportion of Photosynthetic Vegetation (PV), Non-Photosynthetic Vegetation (NPV) and Bare Soil (BS) within each pixel. The sum of the three fractions is 100% (+/- 3%) and shown in Red/Green/Blue colors. In forested canopies the photosynthetic or non-photosynthetic portions of trees may obscure those of the grass layer and/or bare soil. This product is derived from the MODIS Nadir BRDF-Adjusted Reflectance product (MCD43A4) collection 6 and has 500 meters spatial resolution. A suite of derivative products are also produced including monthly fractional cover, total vegetation cover (PV+NPV), and anomaly of total cover against the time series. Monthly: The monthly product is aggregated from the 8-day composites using the medoid method. Anomaly: represents the difference between total vegetation cover (PV+NPV) in a given month and the mean total vegetation cover for that month in all years available, expressed in units of cover. For example, if the mean vegetation cover in January (2001-current year) was 40% and the vegetation cover for the pixel in January 2018 was 30%, the anomaly for the pixel in Jan 2018 would be -10%. Decile: represents the ranking (in ten value intervals) for the total vegetation cover in a given month in relation to the vegetation cover in that month for all years in the time-series. MODIS fractional cover has been validated for Australia.