In the framework of the development of the Copernicus Services, in particular in the technical coordination of the Copernicus Land Monitoring Service (CLMS) and the In Situ Component, the European Environment Agency (EEA) has launched in 2019 the development of a new thematic hotspot product to monitor landscape dynamics in coastal zones. Following an open tendering procedure, an industrial consortium of European EO service providers led by Planetek Italia was selected for its implementation.
The Copernicus Land thematic hotspot monitoring products are a set of very high spatial resolution land cover / land use (LC/LU) maps targeted at areas prone to specific environmental challenges and issues.
The new products will cover all European coastal territory to an inland depth of 10 km with a total area of approximately 730,000 km². The products will have a minimum mapping unit of 0.5 ha and record around 60 LC/LU classes. The initial production will consist of:
- a LC/LU status layer for 2012,
- a LC/LU change layer between 2012 and 2018,
- and a LC/LU status layer for 2018.
As with the other thematic hotspot products, the Coastal Zones product will provide change/status every 6 years. The release of the Coastal Zones products is expected to begin by the end of 2020.
In the context of the Coastal Zone LC/LU product specifications and in the evolution towards a comprehensive coastal monitoring service, the involvement of national authorities is of particular importance and explicitly foreseen over the entire implementation phase via workshops and online interactions.
In the initial phase of the project, before the mapping activities start, the Coastal Zones Consortium will need to gather the requirements from the coastal user community.
A wide-ranging survey is open to collect the feedback of the coastal community addressing the following points:
- amendments to the LC/LU nomenclature with regard to definitions and hierarchy of the specific thematic classes for coastal areas;
- amendments on the area of interest (AOI) definition, areas to be mapped, within stakeholders’ national context;
- further requirements on coastal monitoring evolution (planned and future products).
Please visit the EEA Land Copernicus website to find more information about the project and instruction for the survey participation including deadlines. The agenda will follow soon: https://land.copernicus.eu/user-corner/technical-library/coastal-zone-monitoring.
