Data management and access

Last updated on March 18, 2025

In this section, you will find information pertaining to Vegetation Resources Inventory (VRI) data, such as data dictionary, data models, and standards. Also available for download is ground and spatial ready data, which is updated annually.

2024 annual forest inventory release

Forest Analysis and Inventory Branch is pleased to announce that the Forest Inventory data that you downloaded from the BC Data Catalogue or viewed through internet mapping applications such as IMAP or Mapview in the past year, has been updated. .

Due to system upgrades we are unable to publish to the BC Data Catalogue or to the internet mapping applications at this time. The data is temporarily available for download as a zipped FGDB here: FTP Link

Internal government users can access the data by connecting to \\spatialfiles.bcgov\Work\!shared_access\2024_VegComp_Layers

BC Data Catalogue, IMAP and Mapview will still show 2023 as current data

Important updates to this year’s inventory include:

  • Integration of approximately 988,000 hectares of wildfire impacted forest inventory for the 2024 fire year.
  • Simplification of the Provincial Forest Cover to remove excess vertices (approx. 50%) for 6.5 million polygons, resulting in a 27% reduction in file sizes.

Additional updates to the inventory in this release include:

  • The attributes of all forested polygons updated to reflect stand growth current to 2024.
  • The integration of 880,000 hectares of new photo-interpreted Vegetation Resources Inventory (VRI) in the Kalum, Sunshine and Fraser Timber Supply Areas
  • The update of approximately 14,000 openings to reflect harvesting and silviculture activities (Depletion, Regeneration, and Free Growing submissions reported through RESULTS).
  • The integration of 2.2 million hectares of new photo-interpreted Vegetation Resources Inventory (VRI) in the Banff and Jasper National Parks in Alberta

The forest inventory release includes our standard data products described below:

  • VEG_COMP_LYR_R1_POLY (our most downloaded product): provides the estimates of forest inventory for the rank 1 tree layer. This is the workhorse dataset for almost all analysis, and it has the total dead volume for the polygon identified in the attribution as well as the attribution for the dominant (Rank 1) stand composition.
  • VEG_COMP_VDYP7_INPUT_POLY_AND_LAYER: provides estimates for the projection and creation of yield tables using the latest version of VDYP. 
  • VEG_COMP_POLY and VEG_COMP_LAYER: products that will provide analysts with the spatial forest cover estimates for all layers identified including the Dead layer (Layer_D). This provides more information for the stands following the MPB outbreak, other stands with a significant dead component from other causes, and other live tree layers that were not provided to the public previously, and requires the use of a one to many join to the polygon for analysis.
  • VEG_COMP_LYR_L1_POLY, VEG_COMP_LYR_L2_POLY, and VEG_COMP_LYR_D_POLY: products that are derived from the VEG_COMP_POLY and VEG_COMP_LAYER products, and include only the spatial forest cover estimates specific to the L1, L2 and D layers.

The BC Data Catalogue offers all the standard data products mentioned above, as well as historical data from 2002 – 2022.  All the products are offered as a prepackaged product allowing the user to download the entire province for each year as a single file geodatabase. Several of the data products (R1, L1, L2, and D) are also offered as a configurable product allowing the user to select an area of interest based on map sheets or user defined shapes.  To reduce load on the distribution service we suggest using the prepackaged product if you need to download a significant amount of the province. Use the following link to access the 2023 and historical VRI data products.

2024 wildfire burn severity mapping

A description of the burn severity mapping process for the 2024 wildfire season:

 

Contact Information

Questions about the forest cover and adjustment process:

Manager Inventory
Victoria, B.C.
Phone: 778-974-5687

Team Leader, Forest Inventory Update
Kamloops, B.C.
Phone: 250-312-7290

Team Leader, Data Management
Victoria, B.C.
Phone: 778-974-5516

Other Contacts:

Useful Links