Density of broadleaf trees across Europe (Copernicus)
What it measures. Shows, for each 100-metre cell, what percentage of the area is covered by broadleaf trees such as oak or beech.
How it's made. ESA Copernicus creates it yearly by aggregating its finer 10-metre dominant-leaf-type maps across the EEA-38 countries.
How & where you'd use it. Helps foresters and ecologists track the spread and health of broadleaf forests and study habitat and biodiversity patterns.
What's measured
Coverage & cadence
- Time span2018-01-01 → ongoing
- Spatial extent-180, -90, 180, 90
What you can do with it
- Map vegetation, forests and biomass
- Monitor ecosystem productivity and carbon
- Support habitat and biodiversity studies
Official description
The High Resolution Layer Broadleaved Density (BCD) dataset provides information on the percentage of broadleaved pixels at 100m spatial resolution, and is derived through aggregation of the 10m DLT for the respective reference year. Within each cell the number of broadleaved pixels are counted and the percentages stored into in the 100m pixel of the BCD. The class 255 = outside area is predefined by the 100m boundary layer and remains unchanged. This dataset is provided annually starting with 2018 in 100 meter rasters (fully conformant with the EEA reference grid) in 100 x 100 km tiles covering the EEA38 countries. High Resolution Layer Tree Cover and Forest product is part of the European Union’s Copernicus Land Monitoring Service. This dataset includes data from the French Overseas Territories (DOMs).
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_vlcc_broadleaved-cover-density_europe_100m_yearly_v1"], # 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 / xarray Browsing the Copernicus STAC is open; downloading bytes needs a free Copernicus Data Space account.
Official links
- Open data source Copernicus STAC