What kind of off-season second crop grew in Europe (Copernicus)
What it measures. Flags whether an off-season secondary crop was present and sorts it into one of four types based on timing and length: short summer, long summer, short winter, or long winter. A second season is only assessed where a main season was found.
How it's made. Produced yearly from 2017 onward from satellite-detected crop timing, 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. Helps identify cover-cropping patterns and seasonal farming choices, valuable for soil-protection policy, agricultural research, and land-management monitoring.
What's measured
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 Secondary Crops Type (CPSCT) dataset indicates the presence of an off-season secondary growing season and classifies it into one of four categories based on emergence date and season length: Short Summer (1), Long Summer (2), Short Winter (3), and Long Winter (4). A secondary season is only evaluated if a main season has been detected. A season shorter than 100 days is considered a short variant; otherwise it is a long variant. If the secondary crop emergence occurs before September and after the end of the main season, it is classified as a summer variant; otherwise it is a winter variant. Typically, the secondary season involves planting a cover crop. 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 Secondary Crops Type 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_secondary-crop-types_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.
Official links
- Open data source Copernicus STAC