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Full catalog/clms_vlcc_ploughing-indicator_europe_10m_yearly_v1
clms_vlcc_ploughing-indicator_europe_10m_yearly_v1·dataset

Years since permanent grassland was last ploughed (Copernicus)

CLMS VLCC Ploughing Indicator (PLOUGH) Europe 10m yearly V1
biosphere ESA ESA Copernicus active
In plain English

What it measures. Counts how many years have passed since the last sign of ploughing within permanent grassland, helping distinguish long-standing meadows from recently turned soil.

How it's made. Produced yearly from 2017 onward by combining herbaceous-cover and plant-growth indicators from satellites, 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. Used to separate permanent grassland from temporary fields in other maps, and to monitor where long-established grasslands are being disturbed, which matters for carbon and biodiversity.

What's measured

CLMSCopernicusEuropeRasterLand coverLand useGrasslandPloughingPLOUGH

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 High Resolution Layer Ploughing Indicator (PLOUGH) dataset continues the 2015 and 2018 PLOUGH Layer following a rolling archive principle by adding current information and removing historic years. It indicates the number of years since the last indication of ploughing within the permanent grassland area. PLOUGH is derived by taking into account the series of binary HER layers, the BVL classifications and HR VPP PPI (Plant Phenology Index) quantiles. BVL classes 4 (crop) and 7 (overlaying layer between herbaceous and crop) indicate a ploughing event. Low HR VPP PPI quantiles indicate low vegetation at a certain time of the year. For years with missing information (2016 and earlier) the ploughing information from the historic PLOUGH product is considered which causes some issues. This dataset is provided annually starting in 2017 with 10 meter rasters (fully conformant with the EEA reference grid) in 100 x 100 km tiles covering the EEA38 countries. High Resolution Layer Grasslands 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_ploughing-indicator_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.