A changing climate and a growing population means increased pressure on natural resources. In order to preserve biodiversity and facilitate sustainable development, nationwide information about the landscape is needed.
Metria has mapped Sweden on behalf of the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency and six other Swedish agencies. The project, called National Land Cover Data (NMD in Swedish), resulted in detailed information about ground surface coverage such as forests, settlements, other artificial land, arable land, other open land, wetlands and water. These data sets are publicly available as open data since 2019.
A common basis for all
The goal was to increase knowledge about the landscape and how it is changing. NMD is a common ground for describing and analyzing the Swedish green infrastructure, habitat modelling, environmental impact assessments, climate and vulnerability analyses.
The right decisions - now and in the future
The information will be updated regularly to reflect changes in the land cover. This means that both the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency and other stakeholders will be able to also use the information to analyze changes over time and thus follow changes in the landscape linked to the goals of Agenda 2030. NMD is therefore an important basis in the decision-making process for many authorities.
The first version of the data was produced by collecting and processing extremely large amounts of data from mainly the Sentinel-2 satellite. The satellite images were combined with laser data and existing map data that together formed the basis for comprehensive national land cover data.
- It is a great advantage to be able to use satellite data to produce a national land cover map. Data from the European Copernicus satellites has greatly improved the possibility to produce high quality land cover data, but a high level of expertise regarding the environmental conditions in the north is also a prerequisite. We are happy to be able to contribute with such important and useful data, says Maria Nilsson, head of GIS and remote sensing at Metria.
Using similar methods in Norway
On behalf of Miljødirektoratet (the Norwegian Environment Agency) Metria recently evaluated the possibility of producing a land cover map of Norway using similar methods.
The report describes data, assessments of similarities and differences, necessary expertise and estimated cost for a similar production for Norway, separated at different levels of complexity.
