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Impervious Areas and Sealing Levels

 European Urban Atlas Impervious Areas and Sealing Levels WaterConsumptio Services Water Quality Services

Service Description

The GSE Land Impervious Areas and Sealing Levels service provides sub-national views of (transboundary) land take trends and their impact on representative European areas on subnational level (e.g. Federal States; Departments). Products serve information needs of EC services (e.g. Cohesion Fund) and spatial planning departments identifying conflicts in land use and supporting solutions.


M2.6 mapping product for Weser region / Germany
M2.6 mapping product for Weser region / Germany

Access the actual product via the GSE Land geodata server .

Service Specifications:

Mapping service:
Land Take Map (M2.6)		 Content Method / Model Implementation sites Update frequency
Inventory of artificial surfaces in relation to other land cover
  • CORINE level II for artificial surfaces & sealing levels
  • CORINE level I for non-artificial surfaces
  • Weser region (Germany ), SAIL region England, France, Belgium, The Netherlands)
  • Madrid region (Spain)
  • Lake Constance region (Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein)
 3-5 years
Performance
Thematic Resolution Thematic Accuracy Geometric Resolution / Scale Min. Mapping Unit Min. Object Width Max. Working Scale
8 thematic classes >>80% acc. to the GSE validation scheme and >95% according to the SAGE validation method 1:25,000 0.25ha (artificial), 1ha (others) Sealing levels: 100m 40m 1:12,500
Mapping service:
Land Take Monitoring (M2.4)		 Content Method / Model Implementation sites Update frequency
Tracing and mapping of evolution of artificial landcover
  • CORINE level II for artificial surfaces & sealing levels
  • CORINE level I for non-artificial surfaces
  • Weser region (Germany ), SAIL region England, France, Belgium, The Netherlands)
  • Madrid region (Spain)
  • Lake Constance region (Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein)
 3-5 years
Performance
Thematic Resolution Thematic Accuracy Geometric Resolution / Scale Min. Mapping Unit Min. Object Width Max. Working Scale
8 thematic classes >80% acc. to the GSE validation scheme and >95% according to the SAGE validation method 1:25,000 0.25ha (artificial), 1ha (others) Sealing levels: 100m 40m 1:12,500
Downstream service:
Land take trends (PR1)		 Content Method / Model Implementation sites Update frequency
Assessment of sealed surfaces concerning its relation to demographic data and trends during 3-5 years observation time
  • Spatial disaggregation of statistical demographic data using EO-derived LC/LU maps and demographic data
  • Population exposure mapping
  • Weser region (Germany ), SAIL region England, France, Belgium, The Netherlands)
  • Madrid region (Spain)
  • Lake Constance region (Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein)
 3-5 years
Performance
Thematic Resolution Thematic Accuracy Geometric Resolution / Scale Min. Mapping Unit Min. Object Width Max. Working Scale
n/a 90% 1:25,000 1km grid n/a n/a
Downstream service:
Land consumption impact (PR2)		 Content Method / Model Implementation sites Update frequency
Appraisal of land consumption impact and artificial surfaces describing pressure, state and impact aspects w.r.t. sealing intensity, zoning & protected areas, valuable soils lost and demographic developments
  • Spatial planning indicators based on cross-analysis of EO-derived LC/LU maps with in-situ data
  • Weser region (Germany ), SAIL region England, France, Belgium, The Netherlands)
  • Madrid region (Spain)
  • Lake Constance region (Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein)
 3-5 years
Performance
Thematic Resolution Thematic Accuracy Geometric Resolution / Scale Min. Mapping Unit Min. Object Width Max. Working Scale
n/a Plausibility checking 1:25,000 Communes (LAU-2) n/a n/a

User testimonial

  • the Flanders Maritime Institute (VLIZ) in the SAIL region;
  • the LBEG Niedersachsen in Lower Saxony
  • the Communidad de Madrid in the Madrid region
  • the Land Vorarlberg / LVA Feldkirch in the Lake Constance Region
  • the Bundesamt für Bauwesen und Raumordnung (BBR) in the Lake Constance Region

Further roll-out of the products funded by the LBEG has been achieved for Lower Saxony.

“Responsible for the protection of soils in Lower Saxony, the State Authority for Mining, Energy and Geology (LBEG) looked for a comprehensive land take monitoring service. The products generated through the ESA-GSE Land project fitted our needs but were limited to certain regions. Therefore we decided to order these geo-information products for the entire State as critical input to our soil information system.”
Dr. Marion Gunreben, LBEG; Hannover, Germany

“Fragmentation of land is a time bomb …if you use satellite data over a span of ten years you can really see a difference. What we are able to see from satellite data is that the increase in soil that is sealed off by human infrastructure activities is even greater than we anticipated”
Chris Steenmans, Head of Data Access and Management Group; European Environment Agency

References

GSE Land Impervious Areas and Sealing Levels have been provided to 20 users on regional and national level in more than 10 countries. In total an area over >200,000 km² has been delivered.

More

For more information on the Impervious Areas and Sealing Levels service, please view the actual product on the GSE Land geodata server
Download InfoSheet Impervious Areas and Sealing Levels(PDF, 432kB)
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