1. Copernicus Urban Atlas: an update
Hugo Poelman
European Commission
DG Regional and Urban Policy
Analysis Unit 1

2. Overview Evolution of the Urban Atlas product Current planning
Additional data and analysis opportunities

3. Urban Atlas land use/land cover data
Copernicus Land component product
Combining satellite imagery, imperviousness and road network data
Focus on urban land use classes
Minimum mapping unit in urban areas 0.25 ha
First project with reference year 2006
EU-27
305 FUAs: covering cities with more than 100,000 inh.

5. Urban Atlas 2012 vs. 2006 Second project: reference year 2012
EU-28 + EFTA countries
Covering all FUAs (v. 2011)
More thematic detail in non-urban land use classes
Change layer for all FUAs produced in 2006
Additional layer on street trees (linear green along streets in an urban environment)

7. Current Urban Atlas project
Reference year 2012
FUAs in Western Balkans and Turkey
EU-28 and EFTA: revised and new FUAs
Forthcoming reference year 2018
Including change layer
High-resolution building height layer for capital cities

8. Data availability and additional data
All Urban Atlas 2006 and 2012 datasets on
Population estimates for individual Urban Atlas polygons 2012
Downscaled from 1 sqkm grid and/or sub-LAU2 census data 2011
Ancillary data: land use types (Urban Atlas) and location of built-up areas (JRC European Settlement Map ESM)

9. Analysis opportunities
Change analysis, e.g. changes in land consumption, including per capita
Forthcoming time series
Accessibility and proximity analysis
Proximity of green urban areas
Urban public transport services
Inclusion of building height
Enhanced estimates of population distribution
Analysis of spatial patterns of cities

10. Land use / land cover data
CORINE Land Cover (CLC)
Copernicus Urban Atlas
Imperviousness layer
Global Human Settlement Layer (GHSL) and European Settlement Map (ESM)

11. CLC and Urban Atlas CLC Urban Atlas coverage wall-to-wall
All Functional Urban Areas (FUAs)
MMU
25 ha
0.25 ha urban;
1 ha non-urban
thematic scope
balanced
focus on urban lc/lu classes
classes 44
17 urban;
10 non-urban
update cycle
6 years

14. Built-up areas / soil sealing
Two distinct layers
Soil sealing (degree of imperviousness)
All artificially sealed areas
20 m and 100 m resolution
Reference years: every 3 years
Built-up areas: European Settlement Map (ESM)
All buildings, excluding other artificial surfaces
2.5 m, 10 m and 100 m
Update cycle to be determined

17. Building height Accompanies Urban Atlas 2012 data
10 m resolution raster of building height
For urban centres of capital cities of EU-28 and EFTA
Spatial reference compatible with ESM building layer
See also: INSPIRE building units (BU) datasets and related UN-GGIM:Europe core data specifications

19. Street tree layer Accompanies Urban Atlas 2012 data
Rows or patches of trees covering at least 500 m² and having a minimum width of 10 m
Located in urban LC classes inside FUAs
Available for FUAs where appropriate satellite imagery was available

21. High-resolution population estimates
Population estimates by Urban Atlas polygon
Input data census 2011 (by small grid cell or census tract or other sub-local spatial unit)
Downscaled using ESM and Urban Atlas classes
Available with the Urban Atlas datasets
European 100 m population grid (JRC)
Downscaled from GEOSTAT 1 km² grid combined with sub-local vector input data)
Downscaled using ESM, CLC and Urban Atlas

24. References
Copernicus Urban Atlas:
Mapping population density in Functional Urban Areas:
Access to urban public transport:
Proximity of green urban areas: