This metadata refer to the 'Corine Land Cover plus Backbone' (CLCplus Backbone) which is a spatially detailed, large scale, Earth Observation-based land cover inventory. The CLCplus Backbone Raster Product is a 10m pixel-based land cover map based on Sentinel satellite time series from July 2017 to June 2019. For each pixel it shows the dominant land cover among the 11 basic land cover classes. The product has a three years update cycle and is available for the 2018 reference year.

High Resolution land cover characteristics for the 2018 reference year. Small woody landscape features are important vectors of biodiversity and provide information on fragmentation of habitats with a direct potential for restoration while also providing a link to hazard protection and green infrastructure, amongst others. VHR_IMAGE_2018 made available in the ESA Copernicus DWH will be the main data source for the detection of small woody features identifiable within the given image resolution. The Small Woody Features (SWFs) layer contains woody linear and patchy elements but will not be further differentiated into trees, hedges, bushes and scrub. The spatial pattern shall be limited to linear structures and isolated patches on the basis of geometric characteristics.

This metadata refers to the 'Corine Land Cover plus Backbone' (CLCplus Backbone), a spatially detailed, large-scale, Earth Observation-based land cover inventory which is produced by the Copernicus Land Monitoring Service (CLMS). The CLCplus Backbone is a 10m pixel-based land cover map based on Sentinel satellite time series. Each pixel contains the dominant land cover among the 11 basic land cover classes. See pixel class codes in the additional information section. The product has an update cycle of three years and starting from the 2018 reference year. The update cycle for future products (from 2021 reference year onwards) will be 2 years. You can read more about the product here: https://land.copernicus.eu/en/products/clc-backbone

The Copernicus High Resolution Forest Layer Tree Cover Change Mask (TCCM) 2015-2018 raster product provides information on the change between the reference years 2015 and 2018 and consists of 4 thematic classes (unchanged areas with no tree cover / new tree cover / loss of tree cover / unchanged areas with tree cover) at 20m spatial resolution and covers EEA38 area and the United Kingdom. The production of the High Resolution Forest layers was coordinated by the European Environment Agency (EEA) in the frame of the EU Copernicus programme. The High Resolution Forest product consists of three types of (status) products and additional change products. The status products are available for the 2012, 2015 and 2018 reference years: 1. Tree cover density providing level of tree cover density in a range from 0-100%; 2. Dominant leaf type providing information on the dominant leaf type: broadleaved or coniferous; 3. A Forest type product. The forest type product allows to get as close as possible to the FAO forest definition. In its original (20m) resolution it consists of two products: 1) a dominant leaf type product that has a MMU of 0.5 ha, as well as a 10% tree cover density threshold applied, and 2) a support layer that maps, based on the dominant leaf type product, trees under agricultural use and in urban context (derived from CLC and high resolution imperviousness 2009 data). For the final 100m product trees under agricultural use and urban context from the support layer are removed.

This metadata refers to the 'Corine Land Cover Plus Backbone' (CLCplus Backbone), a spatially detailed, large-scale, Earth Observation-based land cover inventory which is produced by the Copernicus Land Monitoring Service (CLMS). The CLCplus Backbone vector is a land cover map that contains vector polygon geometries (minimum mapping unit: 0.5 ha; minimum mapping width: 20 m) and is based on Sentinel satellite time series and a combination of existing reference datasets for geometries containing transportation and hydrological networks. Each polygon represents aggregated landscape objects and contains their dominant land cover among the 18 basic land cover classes. See polygon class codes in the additional information section. In addition, polygons are enriched with land cover fractions from the CLCplus Backbone raster as well as aggregated attributes based on other CLMS and Copernicus products (e.g. topography). CLCplus Backbone vector is an independent product and its thematic and geometric contents differ from CLCplus Backbone raster and Corine Land Cover. The CLCplus Backbone vector is available for the 2018 reference year. You can read more about the product here: https://land.copernicus.eu/en/products/clc-backbone

The high resolution imperviousness products capture the percentage and change of soil sealing. Built-up areas are characterized by the substitution of the original (semi-) natural land cover or water surface with an artificial, often impervious cover. These artificial surfaces are usually maintained over long periods of time. A series of high resolution imperviousness datasets (for the 2006, 2009, 2012, 2015 and 2018 reference years) with all artificially sealed areas was produced using automatic derivation based on calibrated Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). This series of imperviousness layers constitutes the main status layers. They are per-pixel estimates of impermeable cover of soil (soil sealing) and are mapped as the degree of imperviousness (0-100%). Imperviousness change layers were produced as a difference between the reference years (2006-2009, 2009-2012, 2012-2015, 2015-2018 and additionally 2006-2012, to fully match the CORINE Land Cover production cycle) and are presented 1) as degree of imperviousness change (-100% -- +100%), in 20m and 100m pixel size, and 2) a classified (categorical) 20m change product.

The pan-European Very High Resolution (VHR) Image Mosaic 2021 is a seamless mosaic of the VHR 2021 dataset. The input data consists of a mix of Pleiades, SuperView, Worldview, Kompsat-3, Kompsat-4, Geoeye, SPOT, Deimos-2, Vision-1 and TripleSat images. To enhance the appearance of the input imagery, a histogram stretch was applied, cutting off the lowest and highest 0.1 percent of the histogram values and stretching the remaining values to fit the 16-bit pixel depth. For each input image, only selected areas were used to create the mosaic, and the rest was masked out to exclude areas with clouds and their shadows. Color balance was achieved using a second-order method, which modifies all input pixels toward a set of multiple points derived from a two-dimensional polynomial parabolic surface, ensuring a seamless mosaic. For several water bodies, especially large lakes, the final result exhibited a patchy surface pattern due to presence of sun glint on the satellite images. A post-processing methodology was implemented to recalculate the digital values to produce a seamless appearance surface of some of these major lakes: Vänern and Vättern (Sweden), Oulu (Finland), Peipus (Estonia), Geneva (Switzerland/France), Constance (Switzerland/Germany/Austria), Garda and Bolsena (Italy), Skadar (Montenegro/Albania), Prespa (North Macedonia/Albania/Greece), Beysehir, Iznik and Van (Turkey). The applied methodology consisted of creating individual mosaics with the images comprising only the mentioned lakes (a mosaic per lake), calculating Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) for shoreline extraction, and color balancing each mosaic individually with all land surfaces masked out, using only pixels belonging to the water category. This approach allowed smoothing the patchy surfaces of the above-mentioned lakes considering statistics solely from the water pixels, ensuring a more uniform appearance. To enhance the visualization of the entire dataset at larger scales (greater than 1:500.000), the mosaic displays pan-European overviews generated from the pan-European Very High Resolution 2018 Image Mosaic. The updated VHR 2021 version is visualized only at scales below 1:500.000. The mosaic primarily is used as input data in the production of various Copernicus Land Monitoring Service (CLMS) datasets and services, such as land cover maps and high-resolution layers on land cover characteristic. It can be also useful for CLMS users for visualizations and classifications on land. The input imagery for the creation of the mosaic is provided by ESA. Due to license restrictions, the VHR Image Mosaic 2021 is only available as a web map service (WMS), and not for data download.

The European Ground Motion Service (EGMS) is a component of the Copernicus Land Monitoring Service. EGMS provides consistent, regular, standardised, harmonised and reliable information regarding natural and anthropogenic ground motion phenomena over the Copernicus Participating States and across national borders, with millimetre accuracy. This set of metadata describes the global navigation satellite system (GNSS) model used to calibrate the EGMS Calibrated product (https://sdi.eea.europa.eu/catalogue/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/dbc229ee-b94e-44e1-b0db-9bc57076bef1). This layer is produced based on GNSS data from various sources, with the EUREF Densification network as the main entry point. After filtering and quality control, a total of 3770 stations are used to generate the GNSS model which contains average velocities in east, north and up directions displayed on a 50-km grid. The grid dimension is determined by the average distance between well-maintained GNSS stations over continental Europe. The GNSS model is distributed to users in a single comma-separated values file. Each cell of the model is associated to a value of vertical and horizontal velocity. The product covers the Copernicus Participating States (except for DROMs) and United Kingdom.

The high resolution imperviousness products capture the percentage and change of soil sealing. Built-up areas are characterized by the substitution of the original (semi-) natural land cover or water surface with an artificial, often impervious cover. These artificial surfaces are usually maintained over long periods of time. A series of high resolution imperviousness datasets (for the 2006, 2009, 2012, 2015 and 2018 reference years) with all artificially sealed areas was produced using automatic derivation based on calibrated Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). This series of imperviousness layers constitutes the main status layers. They are per-pixel estimates of impermeable cover of soil (soil sealing) and are mapped as the degree of imperviousness (0-100%). Imperviousness change layers were produced as a difference between the reference years (2006-2009, 2009-2012, 2012-2015, 2015-2018 and additionally 2006-2012, to fully match the CORINE Land Cover production cycle) and are presented 1) as degree of imperviousness change (-100% -- +100%), in 20m and 100m pixel size, and 2) a classified (categorical) 20m change product.

Corine Land Cover 2006 (CLC2006) is one of the Corine Land Cover (CLC) datasets produced within the frame the Copernicus Land Monitoring Service referring to land cover / land use status of year 2006. CLC service has a long-time heritage (formerly known as "CORINE Land Cover Programme"), coordinated by the European Environment Agency (EEA). It provides consistent and thematically detailed information on land cover and land cover changes across Europe. CLC datasets are based on the classification of satellite images produced by the national teams of the participating countries - the EEA members and cooperating countries (EEA39). National CLC inventories are then further integrated into a seamless land cover map of Europe. The resulting European database relies on standard methodology and nomenclature with following base parameters: 44 classes in the hierarchical 3-level CLC nomenclature; minimum mapping unit (MMU) for status layers is 25 hectares; minimum width of linear elements is 100 metres. Change layers have higher resolution, i.e. minimum mapping unit (MMU) is 5 hectares for Land Cover Changes (LCC), and the minimum width of linear elements is 100 metres. The CLC service delivers important data sets supporting the implementation of key priority areas of the Environment Action Programmes of the European Union as e.g. protecting ecosystems, halting the loss of biological diversity, tracking the impacts of climate change, monitoring urban land take, assessing developments in agriculture or dealing with water resources directives. CLC belongs to the Pan-European component of the Copernicus Land Monitoring Service (https://land.copernicus.eu/), part of the European Copernicus Programme coordinated by the European Environment Agency, providing environmental information from a combination of air- and space-based observation systems and in-situ monitoring. Additional information about CLC product description including mapping guides can be found at https://land.copernicus.eu/user-corner/technical-library/. CLC class descriptions can be found at https://land.copernicus.eu/user-corner/technical-library/corine-land-cover-nomenclature-guidelines/html/.