Abstract
Land cover maps contribute to a large diversity of geospatial applications, including but not limited to land management, hydrology, land use planning, climate modeling and biodiversity monitoring. In densely populated and highly fragmented landscapes as observed in the Walloon region (Belgium), very high spatial resolution is required to depict all the infrastructures, buildings and most of the structural elements of the semi-natural landscapes (like hedges and small water bodies). Because of the resolution, the vertical dimension needs explicit handling to avoid discontinuities incompatible with many applications. For example, how to map a river flowing under a bridge? The particularity of our data is to provide a two-digit land cover code to label all the overlapping items. The identification of all the overlaps resulted from the combination of remote sensing image analysis and decision rules involving ancillary data. The final product is therefore semantically precise and accurate in terms of land cover description thanks to the addition of 24 classes on top of the 11 pure land cover classes. The quality of the map has been assessed using a state-of-the-art validation scheme. Its overall accuracy is as high as 91.5%, with an average producer’s accuracy of 86% and an average user’s accuracy of 91%.
Highlights
Land cover maps contribute to a large diversity of geospatial applications, including but not limited to land management, hydrology, land use planning, climate modeling and biodiversity monitoring
The relevance of the land cover (LC) map is defined with regards to its purpose and later on to its effective use by a diversity of users
The estimated overall accuracy (OA) of the LC map reaches 91.5%, which is statistically greater than 90% with a confidence level of 95%
Summary
The data was produced in the frame of the WALOUS project, which aimed at describing separately the land use and the land cover of the Walloon region. The relevance of the land cover (LC) map is defined with regards to its purpose and later on to its effective use by a diversity of users This map was designed hand-in-hand with the user community [1]. LaterAton end ofuse theby design process,of a consensus was agreed with respect to the characteristics the map: effective a diversity users. This map wason designed hand-in-handofwith the user the LC typology, the minimum overall accuracy, the spatial resolution, the update frequency and the community [1]. Additional information was requested in case of overlap between two LC classes These particularities make the described LC map unique in its kind
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