EcoDes-DK15: High-Resolution Ecological Descriptors from Denmark's National LiDAR

EcoDes-DK15 provides 70 high-resolution rasterized ecological descriptors derived from Denmark's national airborne laser scanning (ALS) data acquired in 2014-2015. The dataset, created by researchers at Aarhus University, covers over forty thousand square kilometers of Denmark's terrestrial surface with a 10-meter grain size. It includes measures of vegetation height, structure, density, and topographic features like elevation, slope, and wetness.

Use Cases

• Modeling species distribution based on high-resolution vegetation structure descriptors.
• Analyzing topographic influences on ecosystems using elevation, aspect, and wetness variables.
• Studying landscape-scale habitat connectivity based on vegetation density and height metrics.
• Calibrating or validating other remote sensing products using the detailed LiDAR-derived descriptors.

Strengths

• Nationwide coverage of over forty thousand square kilometers of Denmark's terrestrial surface.
• Provides 70 distinct rasterized ecological descriptors derived from a consistent national LiDAR source.
• Data has a high spatial resolution with a grain size of 10 meters.
• Dataset versioning and updates are documented, with a specific correction for source data temporal purity in v1.1.0.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred from external documentation after download.
• Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified beyond the version update in December 2021.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for specific analytical workflows.

Provenance

Source

Danish Agency for Data Supply and Efficiency's nationwide airborne laser scanning campaign.

Collection Method

Processed from national Airborne Laser Scanning (ALS) / LiDAR data and accompanying elevation models.

Time Range

2014-2015

Freshness

Data version updated on 4 December 2021; source data collected primarily in 2014-2015.

Geography

Denmark