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.

This metadata refers to the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) dataset, one of the near real-time (NRT) Vegetation Index products of the pan-European High Resolution Vegetation Phenology and Productivity (HR-VPP), component of the Copernicus Land Monitoring Service (CLMS). The Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) is a widely used, dimensionless vegetation index that is indicative for vegetation density. It is defined as NDVI=(NIR-Red)/(NIR+Red) where NIR corresponds to the reflectance in the near infrared band, and Red to the reflectance in the red bands. The NDVI dataset is made available as raster files with 10 x 10m resolution, in UTM/WGS84 projection corresponding to the Sentinel-2 tiling grid, for those tiles that cover the EEA38 countries and the United Kingdom and for the period from October 2016 until today, with daily updates. Each file has an associated quality indicator (QFLAG2) to assist users with the screening of clouds, shadows from clouds and topography, snow and water surfaces.

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/.

The high resolution forest product consists of three types of (status) products and additional change products. The status products are available for the 2012 and 2015 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. The high resolution forest change products comprise a simple tree cover density change product for 2012-2015 (% increase or decrease of real tree cover density changes). 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. The high resolution forest change products comprise a simple tree cover density change product for 2012-2015 (% increase or decrease of real tree cover density changes). The production of the high resolution forest layers was coordinated by the European Environment Agency (EEA) in the frame of the EU Copernicus programme.

Corine Land Cover 2018 (CLC2018) 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 2018. 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/.

Corine Land Cover 2018 (CLC2018) 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 2018. 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/.

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 Urban Atlas provides pan-European comparable land use and land cover data for Functional Urban Areas (FUA). The Urban Atlas Change layers have become available from 2012 and only for all FUAs that have been covered in both 2006 and 2012 reference years. Urban Atlas is a joint initiative of the European Commission Directorate-General for Regional and Urban Policy and the Directorate-General for Enterprise and Industry in the frame of the EU Copernicus programme, with the support of the European Space Agency and the European Environment Agency.

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.