GSE LAND - GEOINFORMATION SERVICES FOR URBAN DEVELOPMENT, SPATIAL PLANNING, WATER QUALITY AND IRRIGATION FOR EUROPE

Steffen Kuntz

Infoterra GmbH, 88039 Friedrichshafen; Germany; Email: steffen.kuntz@infoterra-global.com

ABSTRACT The paper summarises the results of GMES Land Moni-toring activities carried out by ESA’s GMES Service Element Land. This project has developed services aimed to serve the needs of European public institutions supporting their efforts to report and manage their natu-ral resources according to European directives and poli-cies.

These services comprise two general elements: (1) high quality generic land cover information (mapping and monitoring services) which is directly derived by EO data analysis in very high to high resolution from IKONOS, SPOT and IRS data and the monitoring of the seasonal vegetation development by medium-resolution MERIS imagery. (2) the so-called downstream services combining user-side data with land cover information for environmental modelling focusing on water quality, irrigation, soil sealing, soil erosion, spatial planning and urban services.

1. INTRODUCTION New European directives and national legislation are demanding more detailed harmonised geo-information on regional and local level to serve the obligations aris-ing from existing (e.g. the Water Framework Directive – WFD, the Urban Thematic Strategy - UTS) and planned directives (e.g. the Soil Thematic Strategy – STS). This automatically demands capabilities for large area moni-toring, i.e. covering at least the 37 member states of the European Environmental Agency (approx. 5.9 Mio km2).

The ESA GMES Service Element GSE Land Informa-tion Services joins the three ESA GSE projects that had already worked on land applications in the first GSE stage: (1) SAGE: water pollution, water abstraction, agro-environmental indicators and soil sealing indica-tors; (2) GMES Urban Services (GUS): urban mapping and monitoring services; and (3) CoastWatch (land part): integrated coastal zone management.

The skills and consortia have been merged in order to provide a joint portfolio of mature GSE Land Informa-tion Services.

By integrating such information into existing infrastruc-ture, models and management tools, international and

national public institutions are enabled to fulfil their increasing reporting and management obligations in an improved way.

2. THE GSE LAND SERVICE PORTFOLIO The GSE Land Information Services portfolio has been structured into common mapping services (so called “core services”) on three levels of scale; and a portfolio of downstream geo-information services, which are described in the following chapters.

2.1 The European Urban Atlas In order to encourage more sustainable development in urban conglomerations well as the urban fringe, and to evaluate the compliance and success of planning meas-ures, detailed knowledge of urban land use is essential for monitoring and analysing changes on a geo-located basis.

A key service driver for a pan-European Urban Atlas is the Urban Audit programme jointly initiated by DG Regio and DG Environment. The Urban Audit currently collects information on the living conditions in cities within the European Union and the candidate countries (EU27).

The European Urban Atlas is scientifically sound, proven and trusted as it builds on CORINE/MOLAND nomenclature, the standards of European land use/land cover product mapping and statistics. Semi-automated processing chains as well as change detection algorithms are used for the generation of the actual urban land cover/land use information. SPOT-5 satellite images serve as basic input data. Subsequently, image analysis results are controlled and manually improved with the help of supplementary information provided by city authorities.

Aerial photography samples are used by an independent external validation team to validate the accuracy. The basic urban land use information is enhanced by urban indicators such as the degree of sealing (different levels of impervious areas) based on NDVI and supplementary data for detailed and accurate up-to-date sealing map-ping (up to 11 classes).

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Proc. ‘Envisat Symposium 2007’, Montreux, Switzerland 23–27 April 2007 (ESA SP-636, July 2007)

Table 1: Urban Atlas Service specification

Content Method / Model Update frequency

Urban Atlas Map

Hot spots; urban agglomerations larger than 100.000 inhabi-tants;

MOLAND-MURBANDY, GUS; based on CORINE level IV (artificial sur-faces)

1-3 years

Performance Thematic

Resolution Thematic Accuracy

Geometric Reso-lution / Scale

Min. Mapping

Unit

22 thematic classes 85% 1:10.000

0,25ha (artificial), 1ha (others)

Figure 1: Example for Urban Atlas and derived indica-

tors. Service provider: Indra Espacio, Spain

The Urban Atlas a sound basis for spatial statistic calcu-lations and the revision of urban plans. Urban planners, politicians, environmentalists and other public stake-holders can make use of this in the planning and man-agement of cities. Concrete examples are (1) monitor the status of a Master Plan development indicating distance to services, sizes of green areas, etc; (2) response to rising percentages of sealed areas; (3) indications of where to stop building activities due to increasing seal-ing levels; (4) support for flood prevention due to in-creased surface run-off.

2.2 Land Take Trends and Land Take Impact ser-vices Mitigation of climate change impact by integrated spa-tial planning is a key element to limit human and socio-economic loss, where e.g. land take by urban growth may lead to increased flood impact through faster run-off.

The impervious area and sealing level service within GSE Land offers an adequate approach to monitoring urban growth and soil sealing, because it provides spa-tially referenced and consistent information in support of reporting obligations. Mapping and downstream products provide views of landtake trends and their

impact on representative European areas on the sub-national level, such as the German ‘Länder’, French ‘Départements’ and Italian ‘Regioni’. At the EU level, the service refers to the principles formulated in the 6th Environmental Action Plan, the European Commission’s “Communication on Planning and Environment - the Territorial Dimension”, the 2nd Cohesion Report and the European Spatial Development Perspective. At the national and sub-national level spatial planning direc-tives such as national sustainability strategies and spatial planning laws are addressed.

Products describe the Pressure, State and Impact of urban land-take. They consist of maps, statistics, indica-tors and scenarios. Answers to key policy questions include: (1) How much land is being taken for urban development? (2) Where does the most significant land-take occur? (3) How many people are affected?

Table 2: Land Take Maps incl. up/down date Service Specification

Content Method / Model

Update frequency

Land Take Maps – up-/downdate

Tracing and mapping of evolution of artificial landcover

CORINE level II with specific topics (artifi-cial surfaces, SAGE)

3-5 years

Performance Thematic

Resolution Thematic Accuracy

Geometric Resolution /

Scale

Min. Map-ping Unit

8 thematic classes 95% 1:25.000

0,25ha (artificial), 1ha (others)

Content Method / Model

Update frequency

Land Take Maps – inven-

tory

Inventory of artificial sur-faces in relation to other land cover

CORINE level II with specific topics (artificial surfaces, SAGE)

3-5 years

Performance Thematic

Resolution Thematic Accuracy

Geometric Resolution /

Scale Min. Mapping Unit

8 thematic classes

95% 1:25.000 0,25ha (artificial), 1ha (others)

Figure 2: Example for Sealing levels at the SAIL region

covering parts of England, Belgium and the Nether-lands (left) and derived spatial planning indicators.

Service Providers: GIM, Belgium & Geoville (Austria)

Benefits can be summarised as (1) enriching lump statis-tics with geospatially explicit information, (2) guaran-teeing European consistency and comparability, (3) facilitating the evaluation of policy options, (4) improv-ing decision making through better planning information (5) moving from observing and monitoring to policy evaluation

2.2 Water Quality (Diffuse Pollution) Services The product range is determined by the wide range of requirements resulting from the new and heterogeneous demands occurring by the practical implementation of the Water Framework Directive (WFD). A specific need for new and spatial explicit data sets has been expressed by a large range of users obliged to implement this Di-rective on international, national, regional and local level.

Answering on these user requirements a service portfo-lio has been defined with operational services, repre-senting all value adding steps within a complete supply chain. As there are differences in (a) the ecologi-cal/environmental circumstances throughout Europe and (b) in national / regional philosophy with which meth-odology/tools the implementation of the WFD is and should be done, a set of products have been defined and will be produced for specific implementation sites, i.e. river basins.

Table 3: Generic Land Cover Map Service Specification Content Method / Model Update

frequency Regional Mapping

Generation of basic informa-tion on land cover

CORINE level III with level IV for specific topics + agriculture from SAGE, geloand

1-5 years

Performance Thematic Resolution

Thematic Accuracy

Geometric Resolution / Scale

Min. Mapping Unit

Min. Object Width

21 thematic classes

80% 10m / 1:25.000

1ha urban classes, 5 ha rural classes

40m

In general the specific services are (1) Mapping Prod-ucts based on high and/or medium resolution satellite imagery, as input to downstream products/services and to be used directly by users for other relevant tasks not covered by GSE Land; (2) general GIS data sets re-quired for spatially explicit working and reporting on issues related to the WFD (e.g. hydrological units); and (3) specific Water Qualtiy models with focus on Nutri-ents and Pestices as the main source of concern with respect to diffuse pollution resulting from agriculture.

Figure 3: Example for mapping services covering the international river basin of Saar-Mosel (left) and model results of pesticides concentration (right). Service pro-

vider: Infoterra GmbH, Germany

2.4 Water consumption by agriculture (irrigation) Service Objective and timely information on water consumption is necessary to support the administrative work in the implementation of regulations and policies, and is needed by companies providing water for irrigation. This need is becoming even more crucial in the southern European countries, where over the last few decades irrigation surfaces have grown significantly. Reservoirs have been built, but the available volume of water may well decrease due to the climate change trend.

The main benefit of a reliable and timely assessment of agricultural pressure on water abstraction is that objec-tive and spatially distributed information can then be used for participative decision making (by the assembly of water stakeholders). This kind of process is applied in most of the water management approaches. In that way support is provided for the building of new reservoirs, and administrative authorisations of irrigation. It is also useful for contrary decisions to restrict irrigation by means of quotas, or decisions to introduce incentives for fostering irrigated surfaces reduction.

Another important benefit is better operational manage-ment of water reservoirs through better anticipation of water demand for irrigation. Less water is inadequately released and lost, and more water is left for agriculture. This is crucial in areas where water is in short supply and must be managed rationally.

An innovative remote sensing technique based on me-dium resolution and large-coverage sensors (MERIS imagery) have been developed to obtain information on the acreage’s covered by annual crops and grasslands. The process is automatic and has been validated in sev-eral European regions (France, Spain, Germany, Lux-emburg, Poland and one Russian oblast). It uses a com-parison with agricultural statistics (less than 7% error in

Plant Protection Agents - Pesticides

IsoproturonOctober

IsoproturonNovember

IsoproturonMarch

surface of irrigated crops) and with land cover databases obtained with high-resolution sensors (e.g. LANDSAT, Spot).

Table 4: Irrigation Service Specification

Content Method / Model

Update fre-quency

Arable Acreages Map

Information about basic land use classes in arable areas using medium resolution data (e.g. MERIS)

MERIS multitemporal; analysis of biophysical parameters

User-dependant, annual update possible

Performance Thematic Resolu-

tion Thematic Accuracy

Geometric Resolution /

Scale

Min. Mapping

Unit Arable areas,

non-arable from CORINE

Up to 80% 300m 0,9sqkm

Figure 4: Irrigation / agricultural water consumption in the Adour-Garonne catchment

For water volume estimation, the process calls for agro-meteorological approaches to evaluate the demand of plants for water. The irrigation actually applied is then calculated by simple water budget models, which take into consideration precipitation and soil water reserve. These models are regionally calibrated.

3. QUALIFICATION & VALIDATION The main goal of any quality assurance (QA) concept is to validate and ensure the agreed quality of a product. Thus, it is important to produce reproducible and trace-able results. Therefore, quality assurance not only guar-antees quality, but also helps to streamline production (reduction of cost) and provide comparable products across different production sites and service regions.

GMES land related services produce a number of the-matic mapping products derived from remote sensing data as a basis for downstream products, such as model results addressing water quality; land consumption, quality of life etc. Hence, it is of great importance that

the satellite based land information is of high quality and that the derived mapping products can be trusted.

The quality assurance approach of GSE Land Informa-tion Services builds on three pillars:

1. Product and service standards jointly set-up and agreed among user organisations and formalised with service providers. This includes standardised product descriptions and interpretation guidelines applicable to all European conditions.

2. A qualification scheme accepted by users organisa-tions and service providers, defined by scientific experts representing demand and supply including scientific and engineering know-how.

3. An implementation scheme for the qualification elements performed by independent auditors and supervisors; i.e. (1) the TÜV Süddeutschland for independent service chain audits and training of in-ternal auditor's, (audit philosophy and method); (2) a trusted European expert on land cover / land use mapping acting as supervisor for chief interpreters in the production units, and (3) an independent cen-tral technical reference team led by the ETC -TE (comparable to CLC 2000 core team established at the ETC -TE or MARS team established at JRC AgriFish Unit) who is responsible for the quality as-surance process and the quality control of the final land cover products

The main step of the quality assurance approach is the validation of the product. It includes three main compo-nents:

1. Qualitative verification by the QA technical team in which some intermediate results of the service pro-vider interpretation will be commented by the QA team and potential deviations from the specifica-tions will be highlighted. The verification is done during the course of production and is meant to in-crease data quality.

2. A quantitative validation: The QA team performs an independent external technical quality control af-ter the finalisation of the mapping product to check whether the products reached the desired quality. It is based on a sampling scheme that takes care of statistical representativeness of the samples together with an acceptable cost ratio with regard to the re-quired independent reference data in a European-wide context.

The validation is carried out in a “blind” approach by experienced interpreters without knowing the in-terpretation done by the service provider. Then, this information is compared to the mapping results from the service providers and statistical indicators

are computed such as overall accuracy, user and producer accuracy and Khappa coefficients based on the error matrices produced

3. Requisites validation: the user finally validates the product if it fulfils the needs that the user itself has included in the product requisites.

4. REFERENCES 1. GSE Land consortium (2006): GSE Land Service

Prospectus; Doc.: ITD-0421-RP-0013-S3-Service-Prospectus; Issue 1

2. GSE Land consortium (2006): Service Portfolio Specification; Doc.: ITD-0421-RP-0015-S5-Ser-vicePortfolioSpecification. Issue 1

3. GSE Land consortium (2006): Service Validation Protocol; Doc.: ITD-0421-RP-0003-C5-Service-ValidationProtocol; Issue 1

4. GSE Land Web Page: http://www.gmes-gseland.info/