High-value datasets – land use in the EU
Publication Date/Time
2023-04-20T10:30:00+00:00
Discover high-value datasets on land use and land cover across the
European Union
This is part of a series of articles showcasing examples of high-value
datasets from their different thematic categories. High-value datasets
are defined by EU law based on their potential to provide essential
benefits to society, the environment and the economy. This series aims
to help readers find reliable and accurate information from official
sources relating to the availability of various high-value datasets,
and to present this information through data visualisation. You can
check out the article providing an overview of high-value datasets
[https://data.europa.eu/en/publications/datastories/high-value-datasets-overview-through-visualisation].

Only datasets specifically defined by law can be considered high-value
datasets and, as such, the data presented in this series of articles
does not necessarily fall under that definition. Instead, the data has
been chosen to be thematically adjacent to high-value datasets and to
showcase what can be done with information made available by official
EU bodies and EU Member States. The official list of high-value
datasets adopted on 12 December 2022 can be found in the legal
documents
[https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=PI_COM:C(2022)9562]
that define these datasets and their characteristics.

USING LAND COVER DATA IN THE FIGHT AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE

Changing the way land is used can significantly contribute to fighting
climate change. The Council of the European Union and the European
Parliament have recently reached
[https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2022/11/11/fit-for-55-provisional-agreement-sets-ambitious-carbon-removal-targets-in-the-land-use-land-use-change-and-forestry-sector/]
a provisional political agreement on strengthening the land use, land
use change and forestry (LULUCF) sector’s contribution to the EU’s
climate ambition for 2030. The LULUCF sector, which includes the use
of soils, trees, plants, biomass and timber (all of which are examples
of carbon sinks), is responsible for both emitting and absorbing CO2
from the atmosphere.

Carbon sinks are natural or artificial reservoirs that store CO2 from
the atmosphere. These sinks can absorb CO2 through natural processes
(such as photosynthesis) or human interventions (such as reforestation
and afforestation). Carbon sinks are critical to regulating the
balance of carbon in the Earth’s atmosphere, as they can help offset
greenhouse gas emissions from human activities, such as burning fossil
fuels and deforestation.

The political agreement sets an overall EU-level objective of
310 million tonnes CO2 equivalent of net removals in the LULUCF
sector by 2030. By progressively increasing absorptions and reducing
emissions, the EU can achieve its climate goals, including carbon
neutrality, and protect our planet from the negative consequences of
climate change.

To understand how land is used in the EU there are several data
sources provided by many different official bodies. Moreover, the
topic was included in the official list
[https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=PI_COM:C(2022)9562]
of high-value datasets, specifically in the ‘Earth observation and
environment’ category. As stated in the annex
[https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=PI_COM:C(2022)9562#document1]
to the Commission implementing regulation, this category includes
‘Earth observation, including space-based or remotely-sensed data,
as well as ground-based or on-site data, environmental and climate
datasets within the scope
[https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX%3A32007L0002]
of the INSPIRE data themes’.

Land cover, as defined by Annex II to the INSPIRE directive
[https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX%3A32007L0002],
includes ‘physical and biological cover of the Earth’s surface
including artificial surfaces, agricultural areas, forests,
(semi-)natural areas, wetlands, water bodies’. The INSPIRE directive
aims to create an EU spatial data infrastructure for the purposes of
EU environmental policies and activities which may have an impact on
the environment. As is the case for other datasets, the inclusion of
land cover in the list of high-value datasets sets a high standard
about how the data has to be produced, described through its metadata
and disseminated to the public with a free, open-source licence.
[https://data.europa.eu/sites/default/files/img/media/5.land-cover6-01.png]
For a general overview about how the land is used in the EU, a good
starting point is Eurostat’s database. The statistical agency offers
both a detailed explanation of the facts
[https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Land_cover_statistics],
in its ‘Statistics explained’ section, and the downloadable
underlying data. The EU has a diverse range of landscapes, from
sub-Arctic tundra environments in the north to semi-arid conditions in
the south, with varying forest structures in different regions.
European landscapes are also characterised by rapid changes in
bio-physical coverage, such as crops, grass, forests, buildings and
roads, within small areas.

One of the datasets
[https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/lan_lcv_ovw/default/table?lang=en]
made available by Eurostat can give a bird’s-eye view of the
continent, showing at a glance how diverse land use can be from one
country to another. In 2018, woodland covered the largest share of EU
land (41.1 %), followed by cropland (24.2 %), grassland (17.4 %),
shrubland (5.7 %) and artificial areas (4.2 %). Other than those,
there are dozens of other smaller land cover categories that can be
explored through this dataset, ranging from different types of crops
to small or large buildings or water bodies.

The following visualisation shows the five most important land cover
categories.
[https://data.europa.eu/sites/default/files/img/media/5.land-cover6-02.png]
The aforementioned dataset is based on the ‘Land use / cover area
frame statistical survey
[https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Glossary:Land_use_-_cover_area_frame_survey_(LUCAS)]’,
often abbreviated as LUCAS, a field survey programme funded and
executed by Eurostat. LUCAS data goes back as far as 2009 and can be
used to understand how land use has changed over time on a regional
level.

The following visualisation shows the starkest changes in EU regions
for the main five land cover categories. It highlights the regions
that became more and less urban over time, along with others where
forests and other natural areas grew or shrank significantly in the
last decade.
[https://data.europa.eu/sites/default/files/img/media/5.land-cover6-03.png]
[https://data.europa.eu/sites/default/files/img/media/5.land-cover6-04.png]
USING COPERNICUS DATA FOR DETAILED ANALYSIS

Land use changes such as reforestation and afforestation can increase
the amount of CO2 absorbed by vegetation and soil, which helps to
remove carbon from the atmosphere. This is one way the EU plans to
fight climate change in the coming years.

As Eurostat data shows, some EU regions have indeed experienced a
large growth in the presence of natural land cover, such as woodlands.
In parts of south-western Europe, such as the Spanish region of
Extremadura and the Portuguese regions of Alentejo and Algarve, the
share of land covered by woodlands has increased significantly. The
same is true for highly urbanised regions such as Berlin and Lisbon,
in which there are now more woodland-covered areas than there were a
decade ago.

Satellite data provided by Copernicus’ Corine land cover
[https://land.copernicus.eu/pan-european/corine-land-cover] (CLC)
inventory allows for a hyper-local view of this change. Initiated in
1985, and with updates made available every 6 years from 1990 up to
2018, CLC can map land up to a width of 25 hectares for areal
phenomena and 100 metres for linear phenomena. This makes it possible
to really zoom in on EU land and understand how its use has changed,
street by street.
[https://data.europa.eu/sites/default/files/img/media/5.land-cover6-05.png]
LAND COVER DATASETS ON DATA.EUROPA.EU

Using appropriate search keywords such as ‘land cover
[https://data.europa.eu/data/datasets?query=%22land%20cover]’ or
‘land use
[https://data.europa.eu/data/datasets?query=%22land%20use]’, the
data.europa.eu portal offers a large number of datasets uploaded by
national authorities in Member States. Examples include agricultural
and non-agricultural land use in Slovakia
[https://data.europa.eu/data/datasets/0c8daa4b-1029-485e-a683-2258c54bfc95],
land use by type in Germany
[https://data.europa.eu/data/datasets/d0b15585-c7e3-5311-ad14-91e4a1f66fb2],
a very detailed dataset of land use in the Basque region
[https://data.europa.eu/data/datasets/https-opendata-euskadi-eus-catalogo-distribucion-de-los-usos-del-suelo-de-la-c-a-de-euskadi-por-ambitos-territoriales-]
(Spain) and land cover in Brno
[https://data.europa.eu/data/datasets/https-kod-brno-cz-nkod-dataset-0614c739e2f5445d905c723c122f4a55_0-ttl]
(Czechia).

The following visualisation showcases two other detailed datasets
available on the portal, which show the features of Provence
[https://data.europa.eu/data/datasets/62103490f26957a4a6952888]
(France) and Luxembourg
[https://data.europa.eu/data/datasets/corine-land-cover-2018?locale=en].
[https://data.europa.eu/sites/default/files/img/media/5.land-cover6-06.png]
OTHER LAND USE DATA PROVIDERS

Land use is a significant topic of research and, as such, it is
covered by a wide array of EU data providers. Among them are the
European Environmental Agency
[https://www.eea.europa.eu/themes/landuse/intro], which offers data,
along with articles, research and publications.

The Joint Research Centre produced
[https://data.jrc.ec.europa.eu/dataset?keyword=Land%20use] several
datasets about land cover, which include the Luisa base map – a
high-resolution land use / cover map and an improvement of the CLC
map.

In addition to the CLC data, Copernicus makes other useful information
available. On the ‘Land use cases
[https://land.copernicus.eu/user-corner/land-use-cases]’ page, for
example, they show how their data has been used by other EU bodies for
different kinds of research.

Also worth noting is the work of the European Space Agency, which has
a specific website section [https://www.esa-landcover-cci.org/] about
land cover and allows European Space Agency climate change initiative
data [https://www.esa-landcover-cci.org/?q=node/164] – a global
monitoring of essential climate variables – to be downloaded.

The European Forest Institute (EFI) manages various online databases
containing [https://efi.int/knowledge/databases] data and information
relating to different aspects of European forests, forestry and forest
research. These databases may have originated from either the EFI’s
core activities or various projects. The information within these
databases is often utilised in performing the EFI’s research duties.

The Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development website
has a section
[https://agridata.ec.europa.eu/Qlik_Downloads/Environment-Climate-sources.htm]
dedicated to land used for agriculture and forestry, both of which
significantly influence the environment and climate.

METHODOLOGICAL NOTES

The map that uses Copernicus’ CLC data shows the following
categories of land use: broad-leaved forest, coniferous forest and
mixed forests.

 

To download the visualisations, click on the following: HVD overview
[https://gitlab.com/Giuseppeascone/data-provider-repository/-/blob/master/Data%20stories/5.0_HVD_overview.png], land
cover categories
[https://gitlab.com/Giuseppeascone/data-provider-repository/-/blob/master/Data%20stories/5.1_land_cover_categories.png],
land cover overview
[https://gitlab.com/Giuseppeascone/data-provider-repository/-/blob/master/Data%20stories/5.2_land_cover_overview.png],
land cover change
[https://gitlab.com/Giuseppeascone/data-provider-repository/-/blob/master/Data%20stories/5.3_land_cover_change.png],
woodlands change
[https://gitlab.com/Giuseppeascone/data-provider-repository/-/blob/master/Data%20stories/5.4_woodlands_change.png],
land use Luxembourg and Provence
[https://gitlab.com/Giuseppeascone/data-provider-repository/-/blob/master/Data%20stories/5.5_land_use_lux_prov.png].

To download the data behind the visualisations, click on the
following: land cover data
[https://gitlab.com/Giuseppeascone/data-provider-repository/-/blob/master/Data%20stories/land_cover_data.xlsx]

 

_Article by Davide Mancino_

_Data visualisations by Federica Fragapane_

 

 
