Forest roads

Name: Forest roads
Topic: Agriculture, forestry, hunting and fishing

Division for Housing, Property, Spatial and Agricultural Statistics

County.

The statistics are published annually approximately 16 weeks after the end of the year.

Collected and revised data are stored securely by Statistics Norway in compliance with applicable legislation on data processing.

Statistics Norway can grant access to the source data (de-identified or anonymised microdata) on which the statistics are based, for researchers and public authorities for the purposes of preparing statistical results and analyses. Access can be granted upon application and subject to conditions. Refer to the details about this at Access to data from Statistics Norway.

The purpose of the statistics is to provide information at the county level about the construction of forest roads. Statistics extend back to the working year 1932/33.

The statistics are used by public agencies (Ministries, county authorities), forest owner's organisations and research institutes. In recent years there has been increasing interest from environmental organizations. Results from the forest roads statistics are used in National accounts. The figures are also used annually in the publication National Resources and the Environment.

No external users have access to statistics before they are released at 8 a.m. on ssb.no after at least three months’ advance notice in the release calendar. This is one of the most important principles in Statistics Norway for ensuring the equal treatment of users.

The statistics are developed, produced and disseminated pursuant to Act no. 32 of 21 June 2019 relating to official statistics and Statistics Norway (the Statistics Act).

In principle, the statistics cover all private forest roads. Data on roads built without public subsidies are however somewhat incomplete. The data cover roads that are finished and approved during the report year.

Data on roads built with subsidies or public loans come from the Forest Trust Fund (SKAS) database. The Norwegian Agriculture Agency keeps data on roads built without subsidies or loans manually.

The statistical data on newly built and rebuilt forest roads built with subsidies are collected by the Forest Trust Fund (SKAS). The Norwegian Agriculture Agency extracts data from the database and forwards them to Statistics Norway. The County Department of Agricultural Affairs and the Norwegian Agriculture Agency reports roads built without subsidies to Statistics Norway.

If the data are unclear, The the Norwegian Agriculture Agency or County Department of Agricultural Affairs is contacted so that any errors can be corrected.

Employees of Statistics Norway have a duty of confidentiality.

Statistics Norway does not publish figures if there is a risk of the respondent’s contribution being identified. This means that, as a general rule, figures are not published if fewer than three units form the basis of a cell in a table or if the contribution of one or two respondents constitutes a very large part of the cell total.

Statistics Norway can make exceptions to the general rule if deemed necessary to meet the requirements of the EEA agreement, if the respondent is a public authority, if the respondent has consented to this, or when the information disclosed is openly accessible to the public.

More information can be found on Statistics Norway’s website under Methods in official statistics, in the ‘Confidentiality’ section.

Initially, when the work on the statistics commenced, it was difficult to break down the data for each year. The overview of forest roads built before 1 July 1950 is therefore a summary of all forest roads built from the working year 1932/33 to 1 July 1950.

Data on roads built with subsidies are assumed to be complete. Data on roads built without subsidies may not be complete because not all road projects are reported. The collected data on forest road building is therefore regarded as minimum figures.