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clms_vlcc_main-crop-harvest_europe_10m_yearly_v1·dataset

When Europe's main crops were harvested each year (Copernicus)

CLMS VLCC Main Crop Harvest (CPMCH) Europe 10m yearly V1
biosphere ESA ESA Copernicus active
In plain English

What it measures. Records the date the main annual crop was harvested (when standing plant material was cleared from the field) in each parcel, given as a year-and-day-of-year code. Only annual cropland gets a value; others carry quality flags.

How it's made. Produced yearly from 2017 onward from satellite vegetation time series, 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 harvest monitoring, yield estimates, and studies of how weather and climate shift the farming calendar across Europe.

What's measured

CLMSCopernicusEuropeRasterLand coverCroplandMain CropHarvestCPLand 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 Main Crop Harvest (CPMCH) dataset provides information on the harvest date of the main annual crop growing season for each classified annual cropland pixel. Harvest is defined as the moment when all standing biomass is removed from the field. The date is expressed in YYDOY format, where YY represents the last two digits of the year and DOY represents the day of the year (1–366). This layer is only generated for pixels classified as annual cropland; permanent crops and locations without a detectable main season are assigned dedicated quality flags. 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 Main Crop Harvest 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_main-crop-harvest_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.