England Woodland Creation Full Sensitivity Map v3.0: variant 2

The Forestry Commission has developed a series of sensitivity maps, based on nationally available and consistent datasets, to indicate where there are likely to be fewer sensitivities to woodland creation.

These maps will help to indicate to landowners whether there is likely to be potential to establish new woodland on their land, and where there may be sensitivities that would preclude woodland creation.

The maps do not indicate that, where there is a low sensitivity to new woodland being created, that planting will be agreed by the Forestry Commission, the regulator for woodland and forestry projects in England. However, the low sensitivity areas have fewest identified constraints to address, and it should be easier to agree creating new woodland here than in other areas.

Likewise, creation of new woodland, particularly of native woodland, may be appropriate outside ‘low sensitivity’ areas, but the appropriateness of proposals in these areas will again be determined by the Forestry Commission, including through responding to the views of Natural England, Environment Agency, Historic England, the Local Authority and other stakeholders, where relevant.

The Sensitivity Maps exclude all land that is unsuitable for planting, including urban areas, existing (and assumed) woodland and habitats that are considered too wet, too rocky, and too salty to support the growth of trees. This is achieved through restricting the Sensitivity Maps to the following land covers, based on the most recent update of Landcover Map:

Acid grassland
Arable and horticulture
Calcareous grassland
Heather
Heather grassland
Improved grassland
Neutral grassland

The spatial datasets and individual layers of those datasets that define land as unsuitable and low, medium, or high sensitivity for woodland creation in the Full Sensitivity Map version 3.0, the Low Sensitivity Map and their variants are set out in the document here:

www.gov.uk/guidance/a-guide-to-forestry-commissions-sensitivity-maps-for-woodland-creation

Attributes:

‘Sensitivity’ = the sensitivity to woodland creation level the land has been assigned.

‘Area (Hectares)’ = the area in hectares of the polygon.

Lineage:

This is version 3.0 of these layers, having gone through several iterations where new data inputs were added and changes made to how these were treated as sensitivities for woodland creation. These are the first versions of the layers to be published as Open Data.

林业委员会基于全国范围内可获取且一致的 datasets，开发了一系列敏感性地图，旨在指示哪些地区在创建林地时可能遇到的敏感性较低。这些地图将有助于向土地所有者表明，在其土地上建立新林地是否具有可能性，以及哪些地区可能存在阻碍林地创建的敏感性。这些地图并不表示，在新林地创建的敏感性较低的地区，林业委员会——英格兰林地和林业项目的监管机构——将同意种植。然而，低敏感性地区所面临的识别约束最少，因此在这些地区达成创建新林地的共识应比在其他地区更为容易。同样，新林地的创建，尤其是原生林地的创建，在“低敏感性”区域之外也可能是适宜的，但这些区域提议的适宜性将由林业委员会决定，包括通过回应自然英格兰、环境署、历史英格兰、地方当局及其他相关利益相关者的观点。敏感性地图排除了所有不适宜种植的土地，包括城市区域、现有（及假定）林地以及被认为过于潮湿、过于多石和过于盐碱，无法支持树木生长的栖息地。这是通过限制敏感性地图至以下土地覆盖类型来实现的，基于最新版本的 Landcover Map：酸性草地、耕地和园艺、碳酸盐草地、石南、石南草地、改良草地、中性草地。在 Full Sensitivity Map 版本 3.0、低敏感性地图及其变体中，定义土地为不适宜、低、中或高敏感性的空间 datasets 及其单独层级的属性如下：

- ‘敏感性’= 该土地被分配的林地创建敏感性级别。
- ‘面积（公顷）’= 多边形的面积（公顷）。

- 线索：这是这些层级的 3.0 版本，经过多次迭代，新增了数据输入，并对如何将这些数据作为林地创建的敏感性进行了调整。这些是首次作为 Open Data 发布的层级版本。