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clms_vlcc_fallow-land-presence_europe_10m_yearly_v1·dataset

Yearly map of which European fields were left fallow (Copernicus)

CLMS VLCC Fallow Land Presence (CPFLP) Europe 10m yearly V1
biosphere ESA ESA Copernicus active
In plain English

What it measures. A simple yes-or-no layer marking, for each year, whether a piece of arable land was left fallow, meaning farmland where farming temporarily paused. Only fields classed as annual cropland are evaluated.

How it's made. Produced yearly from 2017 onward using harvest patterns and satellite vegetation signals by the EU's Copernicus Land Monitoring Service at 10-metre resolution across Europe's 38 countries, including French overseas territories.

How & where you'd use it. Supports monitoring of land set aside from farming, useful for agricultural policy, soil protection, and understanding shifts in how cropland is managed.

What's measured

CLMSCopernicusEuropeRasterLand coverCroplandFallow LandAgricultureCPLand use

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2017-01-01 → 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 Fallow Land Presence (CPFLP) dataset provides a yearly binary classification indicating whether arable land has been left fallow (value 1) during the respective calendar year. Fallow land is defined as agricultural land where, temporarily, no agricultural activity takes place. The determination is based on thematic rules considering the average Crop Types Confidence Layer (CTYCL), the number and sequence of detected harvests and emergences, and the maximum fAPAR value. Only parcels classified as annual cropland by the CTY layer are considered. This dataset is provided annually starting with 2017 in 10-metre rasters (fully conformant with the EEA reference grid) in 100 × 100 km tiles covering the EEA-38 countries. The HRL Fallow Land Presence 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

copernicus_access.py
# 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_fallow-land-presence_europe_10m_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.