These pages explain various tools that I use for mapping Century Wood and that you could use for a woodland you own or manage too. This page about Dunham Park in Cheshire describes the woodland I’ve used in the examples. After a decade of using QGIS, I now base my mapping around the Sylva Foundation’s myForest service plus the other services mentioned in the guides.
Guides
myForest– outlines what myForest provides, the limitations of the free tier, and how to work within them. Plus the extra features you get if you pay.
Organic Maps app – a free app for mobiles and tablets which can be used for mapping work in your woodland even if there’s no signal there. How to import data captured by this app into myForest.
Ordnance Survey app and website – what you get if you subscribe to OS maps, and how it compares to the OS maps access included in the paid myForest tiers.
OpenStreetMap – a free alternative to OS maps, that can be used in Organic Maps and myForest, and that you can update yourself.
Google Earth – how to use Google Earth to mark areas and lines based on Google’s current and historical aerial photography, and how to import them into myForest and Organic Maps. How Google Earth differs from Google Maps.
National Library of Scotland maps archive – gives free access to historic maps across Britain from the start of OS mapping in the early 19th century into the mid 20th century, plus modern imagery like LiDAR.
What3Words – why I don’t use this anymore and what its strengths were.