The urban mask layer and related urban green spaces from the Copernicus Urban Atlas 2018 for selected European cities

Abstract

The urban mask layer represents the planar polygon geometry of the settlement site of a city or municipality at a medium scale (1:10 000 - 1:25 000). It contains the built-up settlement areas of various types of utilisation as well as the closely spatially and functionally related traffic areas, sports and recreational areas, vegetation and water areas. Small, spatially isolated settlement objects are not included within the urban mask in accordance with the scale-related generalisation. The topographical geodata in Germany (ATKIS Basis-DLM) contains the object type "Ortslage", which provides (in its unified shape) the prototype for the urban mask of a city.

A GIS method was developed to delineate the urban mask layer using European Copernicus data. To this end, the following land use classes from the nomenclature of the Urban Atlas 2018 were selected as components for the urban mask:

Continuous and discontinuous urban fabric (built-up area and associated land, predominantly residential structures) (classes 11100, 11210, 11220, 11230, 11240);

Industrial, commercial, public, military, and private units (class 12100);

Port areas (class 12300);

Construction sites and land without current use (classes 13300, 13400);

Green urban areas (public green areas for predominantly recreational use such as gardens, zoos, parks, castle parks and cemeteries) (class 14100);

Sports and leisure facilities (class 14200).

In the Urban Atlas, road and rail transport is not differentiated according to whether the corresponding geo-objects are located within or outside the settlement area. Therefore, areas of inner-city transport can only be implicitly incorporated in the GIS algorithm for delineating the urban mask.

An additional layer for tree-covered urban areas (so-called Street Tree Layer / STL) was also used from the Copernicus Urban Atlas.

Value of the data

In order to analyse urban structures or processes, it seems useful to consider the settlement space with its main physical components of built-up area, inner-city traffic and green space in a spatial context. Certain core urban metrics (e.g. on green infrastructure) would be rendered more meaningful with spatial reference to such an urban mask rather than the administrative city area. Furthermore, the urban mask can be used as a basic layer for cartographic visualisation in medium-scale applications.

ESRI Geodatabase: Urban_mask_30_cities_UA2018.gdb

The ESRI GDB provides 30 feature datasets for the following selected European cities: 

ANGERS, BARI, BERGEN, BRATISLAVA, BURGOS, CAMBRIDGE, COIMBRA, CORK, EDINBURGH, FREIBURG, GENOVA, LEIPZIG, LJUBLJANA, MALAGA, MARSEILLE, ODENSE, PERUGIA, PLOVDIV, PLZEN, REIMS, ROSTOCK, SALZBURG, SZEGED, TALLINN, TOULOUSE, UPPSALA, VERONA, VILNIUS, WIESBADEN, WROCLAW

Each feature dataset includes the following 5 feature classes (polygons):

·         [city]_UA2018_UrbanCore                                        Administrative city area

·         [city]_URBAN_MASK_2018                                    Urban mask layer

·         [city]_URBAN_MASK_GREEN_2018                      Green urban areas (code = 14100)*

·         [city]_URBAN_MASK_GREEN_75M_2018             Green urban areas + 75 m buffer*

[city]_URBAN_MASK_STL_2018                            Street tree layer (tree-covered urban area)*

* inside and clipped with the urban mask

Remarks:

The geodata from the ESRI GDB was used for the analyses described in reference [2].

BERGEN, EDINBURGH, MARSEILLE, TALLINN (cities with islands): Additional feature class of continental administrative city area

MALAGA: Additional feature class of administrative city area without exclave

UPPSALA: Administrative city area delineated to tätort according to map from Lantmäteriet (National Land Survey) of Sweden

Data sources

© European Commission, Copernicus Land Monitoring Services, EEA 2022

Copernicus Urban Atlas, 2018 edition, version v013:

https://land.copernicus.eu/local/urban-atlas/urban-atlas-2018 (downloaded on 02 Jun 2022)

Copernicus Urban Atlas, Street tree layer (STL), 2018 edition, version v012:

https://land.copernicus.eu/local/urban-atlas/street-tree-layer-stl-2018 (downloaded on 01 Jul 2022)

References

[1] Schumacher, U. (2021): The Urban Mask Layer as Reference Geometry for Spatial Planning: Moving from German to European Geodata. In: KN – Journal of Cartography and Geographic Information, 71 (2021) 2, 83-95.

https://doi.org/10.1007/s42489-020-00068-7

[2] Schumacher, U. (2024): Analysis Options for Urban Green Spaces Based on Unified Urban Masks: Selected Results for European Cities. In: Land, 13 (2024) 1, 27.

https://doi.org/10.3390/land13010027

Data processing

Schumacher, Ulrich, University of Rostock and Leibniz Institute of Ecological Urban and Regional Development, Dresden, Germany, 2023

(ORCID: 0000 – 0001 – 8989 – 1185)

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