This land cover classification of Germany was created using Sentinel-2 imagery from the years 2015 to 2017 and LUCAS 2015 in-situ reference data (https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/lucas). It contains seven land cover types: (1) artificial land, (2) open soil, (3) high seasonal vegetation, (4) high perennial vegetation, (5) low seasonal vegetation, (6) low perennial vegetation and (7) water with a spatial resolution of 10m x 10m. For further information, please see the following publication: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jag.2020.102065
The Sentinel-2 fractional vegetation cover (fCover) product for the Netherlands was produced as part of the NextGEOSS project at the German Aerospace Center (DLR). The goal is to derive abundance maps from atmospherically corrected Sentinel-2 multispectral images for: photosynthetically active vegetation (PV); and for combined non-photosynthetically active vegetation (NPV) and bare soil (BS). The fCover product for the Netherlands has been generated by processing 10 cloud-free Sentinel-2 tiles which covered the country on 8 September 2016. The map has a spatial resolution of 60m x 60m. The Sentinel-2 scene classification layer was used to ensure that the spectral unmixing was only performed on areas of vegetation or soil. The abundance maps were made by performing MESMA unmixing on each pixel from an endmember library of PV and combined NPV + BS spectra. The purest pixels in a scene, called endmembers, were extracted using the Spatial-Spectral Endmember Extraction (SSEE) approach. The PV and NPV+BS endmembers were classified with a random forest approach and selected to form the spectral library. The spectral library was used in the µMESMA unmixing to get the PV and NPV+BS abundances.
This dataset includes the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) derived from Sentinel-2 imagery. Using the Google Earth Engine, all granules with a cloud cover below 60% were used as input. Cloudy pixels (referring to quality layer QA60) were masked as well. Eventually, a median mosaic was composed over the whole observation period. It was also used as input for a land cover classification (see: Land Cover DE - Sentinel-2 - Germany, 2015).
The World Settlement Footprint (WSF) 2019 is a 10m resolution binary mask outlining the extent of human settlements globally derived by means of 2019 multitemporal Sentinel-1 (S1) and Sentinel-2 (S2) imagery. Based on the hypothesis that settlements generally show a more stable behavior with respect to most land-cover classes, temporal statistics are calculated for both S1- and S2-based indices. In particular, a comprehensive analysis has been performed by exploiting a number of reference building outlines to identify the most suitable set of temporal features (ultimately including 6 from S1 and 25 from S2). Training points for the settlement and non-settlement class are then generated by thresholding specific features, which varies depending on the 30 climate types of the well-established Köppen Geiger scheme. Next, binary classification based on Random Forest is applied and, finally, a dedicated post-processing is performed where ancillary datasets are employed to further reduce omission and commission errors. Here, the whole classification process has been entirely carried out within the Google Earth Engine platform. To assess the high accuracy and reliability of the WSF2019, two independent crowd-sourcing-based validation exercises have been carried out with the support of Google and Mapswipe, respectively, where overall 1M reference labels have been collected based photointerpretation of very high-resolution optical imagery.
This raster dataset shows forest canopy cover loss (FCCL) in Germany at a monthly resolution from September 2017 to September 2024. It is similar to the product developed by Thonfeld et l. (2022) but was fully reprocessed and updated to reveal the most recent forest disturbance dynamics. The combination of Sentinel-2A/B and Landsat-8/9 data allows for a high temporal resolution while the pixel size of the product is 10 m. The results are clipped to the stocked area 2018 mapped by the Johann-Heinrich-von-Thünen Institute (Langner et al. 2022, https://doi.org/10.3220/DATA20221205151218). The dataset contains predominantly larger canopy openings resulting from different drivers but also larger clusters of standing deadwood. FCCL can result from abiotic (e.g. wind, fire, drought, hail) drivers, biotic (e.g. insects, funghi) drivers or a combination of both as well as from sanitary and salvage logging and planned harvest. The first version with canopy cover losses from January 2018 - April 2021 (Thonfeld et al. 2022) can be accessed here: https://geoservice.dlr.de/web/datasets/tccl.
The product shows forest structure information on canopy height, total canopy cover and Above-ground biomass density (AGBD) in Germany as annual products in 10 m spatial resolution. The products were generated using a machine learning modelling approach that combines complementary spaceborne remote sensing sensors, namely GEDI (Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation; NASA; full-waveform LiDAR), Sentinel-1 (Synthetic-Aperture-Radar; ESA, C-band) and Sentinel-2 (Multispectral Instrument; ESA; VIS-NIR-SWIR). Sample estimates on forest structure from GEDI were modelled in 10 m spatial resolution as annual products based on spatio-temporal composites from Sentinel-1 and -2. The derived products are the first consistent data sets on canopy height, total canopy cover and AGBD for Germany which enable a quantitative assessment of recent forest structure dynamics, e.g. in the context of repeated drought events since 2018. The full description of the method and results can be found in the publication of Kacic et al. (2023).
This landcover map was produced with a classification method developed in the project incora (Inwertsetzung von Copernicus-Daten für die Raumbeobachtung, mFUND Förderkennzeichen: 19F2079C) in cooperation with ILS (Institut für Landes- und Stadtentwicklungsforschung gGmbH) and BBSR (Bundesinstitut für Bau-, Stadt- und Raumforschung) funded by BMVI (Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure). The goal of incora is an analysis of settlement and infrastructure dynamics in Germany based on Copernicus Sentinel data. Even though the project is concluded, the annual land cover classification product is continuously generated. This classification is based on a time-series of monthly averaged, atmospherically corrected Sentinel-2 tiles (MAJA L3A-WASP: https://geoservice.dlr.de/web/maps/sentinel2:l3a:wasp; DLR (2019): Sentinel-2 MSI - Level 2A (MAJA-Tiles)- Germany). It consists of the following landcover classes: 10: forest 20: low vegetation 30: water 40: built-up 50: bare soil 60: agriculture Potential training and validation areas were automatically extracted using spectral indices and their temporal variability from the Sentinel-2 data itself as well as the following auxiliary datasets: - OpenStreetMap (Map data copyrighted OpenStreetMap contributors and available from htttps://www.openstreetmap.org) - Copernicus HRL Imperviousness Status Map 2018 (© European Union, Copernicus Land Monitoring Service 2018, European Environment Agency (EEA)) - S2GLC Land Cover Map of Europe 2017 (Malinowski et al. 2020: Automated Production of Land Cover/Use Map of Europe Based on Sentinel-2 Imagery. Remote Sens. 2020, 12(21), 3523; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs12213523) - Germany NUTS administrative areas 1:250000 (© GeoBasis-DE / BKG 2020 / dl-de/by-2-0 / https://gdz.bkg.bund.de/index.php/default/nuts-gebiete-1-250-000-stand-31-12-nuts250-31-12.html) - Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2020), processed by mundialis Processing was performed for blocks of federal states and individual maps were mosaicked afterwards. For each class 100,000 pixels from the potential training areas were extracted as training data. An exemplary validation of the classification results was perfomed for the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia as its open data policy allows for direct access to official data to be used as reference. Rules to convert relevant ATKIS Basis-DLM object classes to the incora nomenclature were defined. Subsequently, 5.000 reference points were randomly sampled and their classification in each case visually examined and, if necessary, revised to obtain a robust reference data set. The comparison of this reference data set with the incora classification yielded the following results: overall accuracy: 83.5% class: user's accuracy / producer's accuracy (number of reference points n) forest: 90.6% / 91.9% (1410) low vegetation: 69.2% / 82.8% (844) water: 97.0% / 94.2% (69) built-up: 96.5% / 97.4% (983) bare soil: 8.5% / 68.3% (41) agriculture: 96.6% / 68.4% (1653) Compared to the previous years, the overall accuracy and accuracies of some classes is reduced. 2021 was a rather cloudy year in Germany, which means that the detection of agricultural areas is hampered as it is based on the variance of the NDVI throughout the year. With fewer cloud-free images available, the NDVI variance is not fully covered and as no adaptations have been applied to the algorithm, agricultural fields may get classified as low vegetation or bare soil more often. Another reason for lower classification accuracy is the significant damage that occured to forest areas due to storm and bark beetle. The validation dataset was generated based on aerial imagery from the years 2018/2019 which and is slowly becoming obsolete. An up-to-date validation dataset will be applied. Incora report with details on methods and results: pending
SWIM Water Extent is a global surface water product at 10 m pixel spacing based on Sentinel-1/2 data. The collection contains binary layers indicating open surface water for each Sentinel-1/2 scene. Clouds and cloud shadows are removed using ukis-csmask (see: https://github.com/dlr-eoc/ukis-csmask ) and are represented as NoData. The water extent extraction is based on convolutional neural networks (CNN). For further information, please see the following publications: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2019.05.022 and https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11192330
This landcover map was produced as an intermediate result in the course of the project incora (Inwertsetzung von Copernicus-Daten für die Raumbeobachtung, mFUND Förderkennzeichen: 19F2079C) in cooperation with ILS (Institut für Landes- und Stadtentwicklungsforschung gGmbH) and BBSR (Bundesinstitut für Bau-, Stadt- und Raumforschung) funded by BMVI (Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure). The goal of incora is an analysis of settlement and infrastructure dynamics in Germany based on Copernicus Sentinel data. This classification is based on a time-series of monthly averaged, atmospherically corrected Sentinel-2 tiles (MAJA L3A-WASP: https://geoservice.dlr.de/web/maps/sentinel2:l3a:wasp; DLR (2019): Sentinel-2 MSI - Level 2A (MAJA-Tiles)- Germany). It consists of the following landcover classes: 10: forest 20: low vegetation 30: water 40: built-up 50: bare soil 60: agriculture Potential training and validation areas were automatically extracted using spectral indices and their temporal variability from the Sentinel-2 data itself as well as the following auxiliary datasets: - OpenStreetMap (Map data copyrighted OpenStreetMap contributors and available from htttps://www.openstreetmap.org) - Copernicus HRL Imperviousness Status Map 2018 (© European Union, Copernicus Land Monitoring Service 2018, European Environment Agency (EEA)) - S2GLC Land Cover Map of Europe 2017 (Malinowski et al. 2020: Automated Production of Land Cover/Use Map of Europe Based on Sentinel-2 Imagery. Remote Sens. 2020, 12(21), 3523; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs12213523) - Germany NUTS administrative areas 1:250000 (© GeoBasis-DE / BKG 2020 / dl-de/by-2-0 / https://gdz.bkg.bund.de/index.php/default/nuts-gebiete-1-250-000-stand-31-12-nuts250-31-12.html) - Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2019), processed by mundialis Processing was performed for blocks of federal states and individual maps were mosaicked afterwards. For each class 100,000 pixels from the potential training areas were extracted as training data. An exemplary validation of the classification results was perfomed for the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia as its open data policy allows for direct access to official data to be used as reference. Rules to convert relevant ATKIS Basis-DLM object classes to the incora nomenclature were defined. Subsequently, 5.000 reference points were randomly sampled and their classification in each case visually examined and, if necessary, revised to obtain a robust reference data set. The comparison of this reference data set with the incora classification yielded the following results: overall accuracy: 91.9% class: user's accuracy / producer's accuracy (number of reference points n) forest: 98.1% / 95.9% (1410) low vegetation: 76.4% / 91.5% (844) water: 98.4% / 92.8% (69) built-up: 99.2% / 97.4% (983) bare soil: 35.1% / 95.1% (41) agriculture: 95.9% / 85.3% (1653) Incora report with details on methods and results: pending
This landcover map was produced as an intermediate result in the course of the project incora (Inwertsetzung von Copernicus-Daten für die Raumbeobachtung, mFUND Förderkennzeichen: 19F2079C) in cooperation with ILS (Institut für Landes- und Stadtentwicklungsforschung gGmbH) and BBSR (Bundesinstitut für Bau-, Stadt- und Raumforschung) funded by BMVI (Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure). The goal of incora is an analysis of settlement and infrastructure dynamics in Germany based on Copernicus Sentinel data. This classification is based on a time-series of monthly averaged, atmospherically corrected Sentinel-2 tiles (MAJA L3A-WASP: https://geoservice.dlr.de/web/maps/sentinel2:l3a:wasp; DLR (2019): Sentinel-2 MSI - Level 2A (MAJA-Tiles)- Germany). It consists of the following landcover classes: 10: forest 20: low vegetation 30: water 40: built-up 50: bare soil 60: agriculture Potential training and validation areas were automatically extracted using spectral indices and their temporal variability from the Sentinel-2 data itself as well as the following auxiliary datasets: - OpenStreetMap (Map data copyrighted OpenStreetMap contributors and available from htttps://www.openstreetmap.org) - Copernicus HRL Imperviousness Status Map 2018 (© European Union, Copernicus Land Monitoring Service 2018, European Environment Agency (EEA)) - S2GLC Land Cover Map of Europe 2017 (Malinowski et al. 2020: Automated Production of Land Cover/Use Map of Europe Based on Sentinel-2 Imagery. Remote Sens. 2020, 12(21), 3523; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs12213523) - Germany NUTS administrative areas 1:250000 (© GeoBasis-DE / BKG 2020 / dl-de/by-2-0 / https://gdz.bkg.bund.de/index.php/default/nuts-gebiete-1-250-000-stand-31-12-nuts250-31-12.html) - Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2016), processed by mundialis Processing was performed for blocks of federal states and individual maps were mosaicked afterwards. For each class 100,000 pixels from the potential training areas were extracted as training data. An exemplary validation of the classification results was perfomed for the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia as its open data policy allows for direct access to official data to be used as reference. Rules to convert relevant ATKIS Basis-DLM object classes to the incora nomenclature were defined. Subsequently, 5.000 reference points were randomly sampled and their classification in each case visually examined and, if necessary, revised to obtain a robust reference data set. The comparison of this reference data set with the incora classification yielded the following results: overall accuracy: 88.4% class: user's accuracy / producer's accuracy (number of reference points n) forest: 96.7% / 94.3% (1410) low vegetation: 70.6% / 84.0% (844) water: 98.5% / 94.2% (69) built-up: 98.2% / 89.8% (983) bare soil: 19.7% / 58.5% (41) agriculture: 91.7% / 85.3% (1653) Incora report with details on methods and results: pending