A detailed land use/land cover map for the European Alps macro region

Abstract

Spatially and thematically detailed land use maps are of special importance to study and manage populated mountain regions. Due to the complex terrain, high elevational gradients as well as differences in land demand, these regions are characterized by a high density of different land uses that form heterogeneous landscapes. Here, we present a new highly detailed land use/landcover map for the areas included in the European Strategy for the Alpine Region. The map has a spatial resolution of up to 5 m and a temporal extent from 2015 to 2020. It was created by aggregating 15 high-resolution layers resulting in 65 land use/cover classes. The overall map accuracy was assessed at 88.8%. The large number of land use classes and the high spatial resolution allow an easy customization of the map for research and management purposes, making it useable by a broad audience for various applications. Our map shows that by combining theme specific "high-resolution" land use products to build a comprehensive land use/land cover map, a high thematic and spatial detail can be achieved.

Fig. 1

The EUSALP LULC map. The 65 LULC classes of the map aggregated into 27 classes to simplify the reading of the map. (a–c) Zoom windows showing the high resolution of the EUSALP LULC map (on the right) in comparison with other LULC products^,–,,.

Fig. 2

conceptual representation of the workflow used to build the EUSALP LULC map. The main steps are: (1) data selection, (2) data adaptation, (3) harmonization and (4) data structuring and classification, 5) output data and 6) validation.

Fig. 3

Map of the Datasource Layer which indicates the source and reference year of every pixel.