September 28, 2026 — October 4, 2026
Woods, carbon, and the bus that takes you there
Three additions explore England's woods, estimated carbon change in tropical drylands, and buses around France's Grand Bourg.
A wood is more than a green patch on a map. A savanna is more than empty space between trees. And a bus timetable is more than a promise on paper. This week, three datasets invite us to look closer at landscapes and everyday journeys.
01 / Grand Bourg Agglomération / data.gouv.fr
A bus timetable meets the street
Grand Bourg Agglomération, France · routes and stops in the newly added October 1 GTFS file · continuously refreshed vehicle and trip-update feeds
Grand Bourg's Rubis network publishes the planned service in a downloadable GTFS file and real-time messages about vehicles and delays. The live feeds existed before this week; the October 1 file is a new companion resource, not the first opening of the whole dataset.
Why it's worth exploring
Choose one route and compare what the schedule says with what the feed reports over several service days. When does waiting feel predictable? The feed may be empty outside operating hours, and a vehicle position by itself cannot tell you why a person was late—or whether every trip ran.
Rubis Grand Bourg Transit Schedule and Live Feeds02 / NERC EDS Environmental Information Data Centre
A closer look at carbon in the dry tropics
Intact tropical dry forests and savannas worldwide · average annual change across 2000–2024 · 10-kilometre grid cells
Researchers used long-term observations from 424 permanent plots and a model that considers climate, fire, soils, and distance from cities. The downloadable map estimates changes in carbon held by trees, grasses, and topsoil, with ranges that show uncertainty. It covers places where the model had a suitable basis, not the whole tropical world.
Why it's worth exploring
Choose a region and ask whether the estimated gains and losses differ among trees, grass, and soil. Why might those layers tell different stories? This is a lead for reading the methods and speaking with local researchers—not a direct measurement of every square kilometre or proof of what caused a change.
Tropical Dryland Ecosystem Carbon Fluxes, 2000–202403 / Forestry Commission / Forest Research
Look beyond the green patch
England · 2025 imagery and 2024–25 planting information · mapped woodland and internal open-area polygons
The Forestry Commission interprets aerial photographs, Sentinel-2 imagery, and planting records to map woodland. Its categories include broadleaf and conifer woods, young trees, felled ground, windblow, and some open areas surrounded by woods. Most woodland patches have to meet minimum size and width rules to appear.
Why it's worth exploring
Pick a wood you know and ask where its mapped edges and categories surprise you. Are the open spaces paths, water, or something else? The map can guide a walk or interview, but an image-based category is not proof of what every tree is, or why a patch changed. Compare versions and check the publisher's notes before drawing a trend.
National Forest Inventory England 2025All three are new to our library. England's inventory uses 2025 imagery; the tropical map estimates average annual change across 2000–2024. Grand Bourg's live feeds are older, but a new companion GTFS file was added this week. None should be read as a complete account of a place or a person's journey.
These reports cover additions to our library, not necessarily newly published data. Check the dataset notes and official sources for coverage dates, licensing, and limits on use.