HalifaxTree RemovalGet help with your tree

Original analysis · Open municipal data

What Halifax’s tree records actually tell us

A closer look at recorded tree work, inventory and historical canopy—and the decisions these datasets can help you make.

Analysis by Halifax Tree Removal. Municipal snapshot imported (UTC).

Work service updated 2026-10-18. This is an independent analysis, not an HRM publication or an arborist assessment.

Three findings to start with

32.1%

Pruning and Trimming leads recorded work types

13,308 of 41,439 orders use the source description “Tree - Pruning and Trimming”. These are orders, not trees or hours worked.

81.3%

Removal orders lack a usable resolution code

7,104 of 8,738 removal-related orders have missing or other resolution. That does not tell us whether the work happened.

13.0%

Single Tree records labelled Norway Maple

10,266 of 78,953 records in that category. This describes the published inventory, not all trees across Halifax.

01 · Recorded activity

Pruning, removal and planting are different work streams

The 11 descriptions below cover all 41,439 tree-related work orders in the validated snapshot. Each distinct work-order ID is counted once, including unresolved and no-work records. One order can describe more than one tree; generic quantities are not converted into trees.

Orders by source work description. Percentages use all work orders; bar lengths are scaled to the largest category.
  1. Tree - Pruning and Trimming13,308 (32.1%)
  2. Tree - Removal8,738 (21.1%)
  3. Tree - Replacement5,532 (13.3%)
  4. Tree - Chipping and Brush Removal5,458 (13.2%)
  5. Tree - Stump Removal4,308 (10.4%)
  6. Tree - New Planting2,120 (5.1%)
  7. Tree - Trunk Work863 (2.1%)
  8. Tree - Assessment737 (1.8%)
  9. Tree - Stakes and Sodding290 (0.7%)
  10. Tree - Miscellaneous64 (0.2%)
  11. Urban Forestry Storm Response21 (0.1%)
View counts by initiated year

Observed initiation dates run from 2017-07-18 to 2026-10-16. The first and latest years are partial observed years. This is the source’s recorded history, not an independently verified count of every municipal job or a measure of resident demand.

Counts by initiation date, including undated records
YearOrdersWithin observed date range
20172,236First observed year · partial
20183,095Between snapshot bounds
20192,746Between snapshot bounds
20203,890Between snapshot bounds
20214,942Between snapshot bounds
20226,255Between snapshot bounds
20236,368Between snapshot bounds
20244,561Between snapshot bounds
20254,042Between snapshot bounds
20263,297Latest observed year · partial
Undated7No usable initiation date
Inspect individual source records in the tree-work explorer →

02 · Outcomes and uncertainty

A closed work order is not a removal count

Of 8,738 “Tree - Removal” orders, 1,629 have the resolution WORK, 5 have NOWORK and 7,104 remain unknown. Even the WORK subset counts orders with recorded work, not the number of trees removed.

The table shows why status and resolution need separate columns. CLOSED and COMPLETE are administrative status labels. We interpret only WORK as work recorded and NOWORK as no work; all missing or other resolution values stay unknown.

All 41,439 orders, grouped by exact source status and resolution
StatusWORKNOWORKMissing / otherAll orders
CLOSED261329,64029,904
COMPLETE7,018227627,802
REVIEWED402,4642,468
ASSIGNED40676680
HOLD10477478
INVOICE808290
APPROVED001313
OPEN0044
Total7,2962534,11841,439

03 · Recorded tree assets

What species appear most often in the inventory?

The inventory contains 80,051 asset records. Category totals are 78,953 Single Tree, 1,013 Dead Tree, 85 Tree Area - Grove. Species comparisons below use only the 78,953 Single Tree records, preserving exact source labels, including unknowns.

Ten most frequent source species labels within Single Tree records. Percentages use all Single Tree records; remaining labels are in the CSV.
  1. Norway Maple10,266 (13.0%)
  2. Red Maple7,501 (9.5%)
  3. American Elm4,089 (5.2%)
  4. Unknown Species3,843 (4.9%)
  5. Northern Red Oak3,259 (4.1%)
  6. Japanese Tree Lilac3,253 (4.1%)
  7. Sugar Maple2,382 (3.0%)
  8. Linden2,094 (2.7%)
  9. Littleleaf Linden1,987 (2.5%)
  10. Freeman Maple1,803 (2.3%)

“Linden” and “Littleleaf Linden”, for example, stay separate. A species label alone does not establish condition, invasive status, suitability for a site or a need for removal. Inventory coverage and ownership labels should not be treated as a census of every private tree.

Inventory service updated 2026-10-18. Inspect the official Public Trees service ↗

Explore inventory locations and source categories →

04 · Historical canopy

Canopy percentages describe areas, not individual trees

354 of 609 dissemination areas (58.1%) have a published historical canopy percentage below 40%. This is the share of census areas, each counted equally. It is not the share of Halifax’s land or population below a canopy target; no target is applied in this analysis.

Dissemination areas grouped by published canopy percentage. Lower bounds are inclusive; 100% is included in the final valid bin. No land-area weighting is applied.
  1. 0 to <20%84 (13.8%)
  2. 20 to <40%270 (44.3%)
  3. 40 to <60%154 (25.3%)
  4. 60 to <80%94 (15.4%)
  5. 80 to 100%7 (1.1%)
  6. Missing / outside 0–100%0 (0.0%)

190 area records carry at least one source-data flag, such as an area/percentage discrepancy or missing priority index. The report keeps published percentages and includes flagged records in the bins; the explorer shows the flags. We do not silently replace the published values.

Two historical products, with different boundaries

The separate community archive has 235 grouped source records across 203 named communities: 54 urban records and 181 rural records. A community can appear in both. These are not the 609 census-area records charted above.

Urban canopy inputs cover 2019–2022; rural inputs cover 2017–2018. The community overview omits patches smaller than 1,000 m², fills small holes and simplifies boundaries. Its preparation date does not make the canopy observations current. Neither product can establish a current annual canopy-loss rate from this snapshot.

Open community canopy maps and GeoJSON downloads →

What this means for a Halifax homeowner

  • Use the work explorer to understand recorded municipal activity, then contact HRM 311 about a public-tree concern. A map pin does not establish ownership or permission.
  • Keep tree removal, stump work and replacement separate when checking scope. A municipal record does not provide a private contractor’s cost or crew time.
  • Use historical canopy to explore area context. A current tree condition or construction decision needs site-specific assessment.
Check ownership and permissions →Prepare a comparable quote scope →

Methods, dates and source attribution

This report is calculated from the complete validated local snapshot, not the limited records preview embedded in the map page. It contains aggregates only; no enquiry details or private project submissions are included.

  1. Complete validated AST_TREE work-order snapshot; count each distinct work-order ID once, not quantities or trees.
  2. Initiated years use source initiation dates, including an undated group. First and latest years are partial observed years; completeness of intervening years is not independently established.
  3. WORK means work recorded in the resolution field; NOWORK means no work; missing or other codes remain unknown regardless of status.
  4. Species counts use only the exact Single Tree inventory category and preserve source names and unknowns. Other asset categories are counted separately.
  5. Canopy bins count dissemination areas using published percentage values, with lower bounds inclusive and upper bounds exclusive except 100%. No land-area weighting or recalculation is applied. Flagged source percentages remain included.
  6. Community canopy uses mixed rural 2017–2018 and urban 2019–2022 inputs. Community records are not trees or a current municipal coverage estimate.
  7. No tree-to-work linkage, private price, crew time, tree-loss rate or current canopy trend is inferred.

107 work orders have no valid map point and 118 carry at least one quality flag. Both remain in the aggregate counts; those groups can overlap. Administrative date differences are not used to estimate crew hours.

Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence – Halifax. Read the licence ↗. No municipal endorsement is implied. Values are rounded to one decimal place only for percentage display; CSVs retain integer counts.

Reproduce the analysis with the downloadable calculation and runner below. The generator validates source counts and unique work and inventory IDs. The JSON download records the snapshot hash, source dates and analysis rules. Full import, coordinate and canopy methodology →

Snapshot fingerprint

SHA-256: 1f7796680e3f54681025ccc53b97005c9ce8d57bf075f9702143e58b8a6c423f

Canopy source table SHA-256: 57208cbbcdf544a655bccd67c5ca69fa0cf241174486d3f584f03d7436556372

Download, check and cite the findings

Free aggregate downloads. Each CSV states its count denominator. Use the JSON for methods, provenance and complete counts; use the canopy explorer for the separate geographic files.

Reproduce the calculations yourself

Save both files into the same folder: calculation source (TypeScript) ↓ and reproduction script (JavaScript) ↓. With Node.js 22.6 or later, run node --experimental-strip-types reproduce-report.mjs. It downloads the public snapshot, checks version/count consistency and compares every aggregate with the published JSON. No account or package install is needed.

Suggested citation: Halifax Tree Removal, “Halifax tree-data report”, municipal snapshot 2026-10-25. Include the source dates and limitations when reusing a finding. Send a correction or data question.

Last reviewed: 2026-10-25. This is general information, not a property-specific legal, arboricultural or emergency assessment.