Datasets worth opening
Datasets the newsletter has pointed readers at, with what it said to watch for in each.
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India State of Forest Report 2023
| *From [The Research Rundown | April 2025](/SignalStack/archive/2025-04-28-the-research-rundown-april-2025-edition.html), 2025-04-28.* |
The Forest Survey of India’s India State of Forest Report 2023 is the latest edition available when this issue is being written. It contains state- and national-level data on forest cover, tree cover, mangroves, forest fires, growing stock, bamboo and forest carbon.
The headline forest-cover number is rarely the most interesting part.
“Forest cover” is a remote-sensing classification based substantially on canopy density and land area. It does not by itself distinguish the ecological quality of different forests, nor does an increase in canopy necessarily imply restoration of natural forest. Researchers should read the classification rules before using changes in forest-cover area as a biodiversity outcome.
FSI report portal:
https://www.fsi.nic.in/forest-report-2023
Volume I:
https://fsi.nic.in/uploads/isfr2023/isfr_book_eng-vol-1_2023.pdf
State and Union Territory chapters:
https://fsi.nic.in/isfr-volume-ii
For comparison, PRS’s 2025–26 analysis of the Environment Ministry budget is useful alongside the physical data: