How European city land use changed, 2018 to 2021 (Copernicus)
What it measures. Maps where land cover and land use shifted between 2018 and 2021 in Europe's larger urban areas, picking up changes as small as a tenth of a hectare.
How it's made. ESA Copernicus produces this change-detection layer as part of its Urban Atlas, comparing detailed maps from the two reference years.
How & where you'd use it. Lets planners and policymakers see where cities expanded, where green space was lost, and how neighbourhoods transformed over three years.
What's measured
Coverage & cadence
- Time span2018-01-01 → 2021-12-31
- Spatial extent-180, -90, 180, 90
What you can do with it
- Track deforestation, fire scars and land-cover change
- Monitor crop and vegetation health (NDVI/EVI)
- Map how built-up vs. green an area is over time
Official description
The Urban Atlas Land Cover and Land Use Change product provides detailed change detection information between reference years for Functional Urban Areas (FUAs) in Europe. The product has a Minimum Mapping Unit (MMU) of 0.10 hectares (1,000 m²) and a Minimum Mapping Width (MMW) of 10 meters. It is part of the Copernicus Land Monitoring Service (CLMS) and covers urban areas across Europe with a 3-yearly temporal repeat rate. The data is provided in flatgeobuf format with EPSG:3035 projection and captures changes between 2018 and 2021.
Get the data
# ESA Copernicus Data Space — open STAC API (free account)
from pystac_client import Client
cat = Client.open("https://stac.dataspace.copernicus.eu/v1")
search = cat.search(
collections=["clms_urban-atlas_land-cover-use-change_europe_V010ha_vector_static_v01"], # add _cog or _nc for a format variant
bbox=(-10, 35, 30, 60), # your area (W,S,E,N)
datetime="2024-01-01/2024-12-31",
)
items = list(search.items()) # then read assets with rioxarray / xarrayBrowsing the Copernicus STAC is open; downloading bytes needs a free Copernicus Data Space account.
Official links
- Open data source Copernicus STAC