CORINE Land Cover 5 ha: German Landscape Grid for 2012

CORINE Land Cover 5 ha (CLC5) 2012 provides a generalized grid-based description of the German landscape. The Bundesamt für Kartographie und Geodäsie produced it by deriving unique CLC classes from detailed 1-ha land cover and land use models, then generalizing to a 5-hectare minimum mapping unit. It integrates aspects of land cover, land use, soil sealing, and vegetation content under a standardized European nomenclature.

Use Cases

• Modeling landscape fragmentation based on the generalized 5-hectare grid.
• Analyzing land use change over time based on the CLC class nomenclature.
• Assessing urban development and soil sealing impacts based on integrated sealing (SIE) information.
• Studying vegetation cover and its distribution based on integrated vegetation (VEG) content.

Strengths

• Integrates multiple data aspects: land cover, land use, soil sealing, and vegetation content.
• Based on detailed 1-hectare land cover models (LBM-DE2012/2015) before generalization.
• Uses a standardized European land cover classification (CLC classes).

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.
• The 5-hectare generalization may obscure finer-grained landscape details present in the source data.

Provenance

Source

Bundesamt für Kartographie und Geodäsie

Collection Method

Derived from land cover models Germany 2012 and 2015 (LBM-DE2012/2015), generalized to a 5-hectare grid.

Time Range

2012

Geography

Germany