Land Cover and Land Use Monitoring

The European Land Monitoring Service (EUROLAND) addresses the local (i.e. the Urban Atlas) and the continental component (i.e. high spatial resolution, wall-to-wall land cover parameters and land cover change) of the Land Monitoring Core Service (LMCS). More specifically the following information will be provided:

Local Component: The Urban Atlas generates VHR geo-information on land use for important European urban agglomerations. Its main objective is to support the Urban Audit of DG Regional Policy. The specification of the Urban Atlas presently contains 19 thematic classes, with a Minimum Mapping Unit of 0.25 ha for urban classes and 1 ha for non-urban classes.
EUROLAND develops efficient change detection methods for the updating of coming versions of the Urban Atlas. Several cities are produced and available for viewing and download.

Continental Component: EUROLAND developed 5 High Resolution quantitative thematic Land Cover parameters (HR layer) and HR change layer at pixel based level with information on impervious areas, forests, grasslands, wetlands and small water bodies. With this development Euroland contributes to an efficient processing chain for future updates and thematic upgrades of CORINE Land Cover (CLC). This approach uses common elements (e.g. data pre-processing, calibrated indices, biophysical parameters, and change indicators) and intermediate products of general interest, such as the 5 High Resolution layers.
All layers are available in several test sites across Europe, only the HR Imperviousness Layer covers all EEA38 countries.
The continental component is complemented by statistical area frame sampling using VHR imagery. It is aimed to better understand the reasons for change across European regions and to support the validation of continental monitoring approaches in Europe and Africa.

• Provision of sound methods for monitoring urban expansion and sprawl;
• Wall-to-wall, pan-European "quantitative" land cover layers allow for a better understanding of land cover changes and ecological / environmental trends;
• Monitoring of changes to mitigate impacts of global warming and environmental degradation;
• Support of the creation of pan-European environmental indicators;
• Support of Member States in their national mapping and monitoring activities.

For further details please consult the EUROLAND flyer (pdf, 1,8 MB) or contact the EUROLAND team by Email.

The EUROLAND products and services are accessible on the geoland2 SDI Expert portal.

Demonstration of the Service "Imperviousness Layer" for different regions you can find here.