Urban Land Use: lessons from the Urban Atlas

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Urban Land Use lessons from the Urban Atlas

• Lewis Dijkstra
• Deputy Head of the Analysis Unit
• European Commission DG Regional Policy
• Lewis.Dijkstra_at_ec.europa.eu

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Overview

• New grid based definitions
• Urban-rural regional typology Urban clusters
• Degree of urbanisation
• Cities and hinterland High-density clusters and
  commuting zones
• Measuring urban land use
• CORINE
• Soil sealing
• Urban Atlas

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A new urban-rural regional typology

• Classifying EU NUTS3 regions
• A variant of the OECD methodology
• Aiming to provide a consistent basis for
  describing urban, intermediate and rural regions
  in various Commission reports and publications
• Developed by
• DG Agriculture and Rural Development
• DG Regional Policy
• Eurostat
• DG Joint Research Centre

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Why a new typology?

• Distortions using the OECD methodology at NUTS3
  level
• Large variation in area of local administrative
  units (LAU2)
• Large variation in area of NUTS3 regions
• Some city centres separated from surroundings, at
  NUTS3 level

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The new typology local level

• Units 1 km² grid cells
• Population grid registered population when
  available, otherwise disaggregation grid (JRC)
• Identify population living in urban areas
• Selection of grid cells with density gt 300
  inh./km²
• Only groups of grid cells, representing a total
  population of gt 5000 inhabitants
• Contiguity is evaluated including diagonals

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What is degree of urbanisation?

• Classification of all LAU2s into three
  categories
• Thinly populated
• Intermediate density
• Densely populated
• It is used primarily in the Labour Force Survey
  (LFS), but also in other surveys such as Survey
  on Income and Living Conditions (SILC) and IT
• It is based on LAU2 density and contiguity
• In use for 20 years

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Why a revision?

• Distortions due to the large variation in area of
  local administrative units (LAU2)
• Revised urban-rural typology is based on a grid
  based definition of rural areas which is more
  reliable than OECD or LFS approach
• Harmonising spatial concepts
• Rural (OECD) and thinly populated areas (LFS)
• Densely populated areas (LFS) and cities (UA)

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Previously 3 conflicting definitions
Urban-Rural Typology Degree of urbanisation Urban Audit
Rural LAU2 ? Thinly populated
Intermediate density
Densely populated ? Cities
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New Proposal Harmonised definition based on
population grid
Revised Degree of urbanisaton
Thinly populated ? Rural LAU2
Intermediate density
Densely populated ? Urban Audit Cities
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New Proposal 3 Criteria 3 Classes
Type of Area Criteria
Thinly populated gt 50 population in rural grid cells
Intermediate density lt50 population in rural grid cells and lt50 population in high-density grid cells
Densely populated gt 50 population in high-density grid cells
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Definitions

• Rural grid cells cells outside urban clusters
• Urban clusters contiguous (including diagonals)
  cells with a density of at least 300 inhab/km2
  and a minimum of 5 000 inhabitants
• High-density clusters contiguous (without
  diagonals and with gap filling) cells with a
  density of at least 1500 inhab/km2 and a minimum
  of 50 000 inhabitants

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Population grid

• Units 1 km² grid cells (future reference for all
  population grids)
• Registered population in NO, CH, HR, AT, FI, SE,
  DK and NL
• Elsewhere disaggregation grid v5 (JRC)
• FR is creating a real 1 km2 population grid

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City and hinterland definition
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Why a new definition?

• No harmonised European definition of a city and
  its functional area existed
• Use the same criteria as the degree of
  urbanisation
• Uses commuting analysis to define commuting zone
• Consider poly-centricity by checking for
  connected centres

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City definition

• A city consists of one or more municipalities
  (local administrative unit level 2 LAU2).
• At least half of the city residents live in an
  urban centre (i.e. a cluster of high-density grid
  cells with the gaps filled)
• An urban centre has at least 50 000 inhabitants.

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City definition
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Hinterland definition

• If 15 of employed persons living in one city
  work in another city, these cities are combined
  into a single destination (polycentric)
• All municipalities with at least 15 of their
  employed residents working in a city are
  identified
• Municipalities surrounded by a single functional
  area are included and non-contiguous
  municipalities are dropped

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Hinterland definition
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Urban Land Use
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Goal and obstacles

• Accurately measure urban land use, especially at
  the urban fringe
• CORINE is designed to mainly measure agricultural
  uses, coarse resolution and does not identify
  low-density developed (i.e. below 50 of soil
  sealing)
• Soil sealing, high resolution and measures all
  levels of sealing, but no land use info

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The Urban Atlas

• Designed to measure urban land use at high
  resolution and at low levels of soil sealing
• Providing harmonised land cover/land use maps
  according to a common classification
• Covering 305 major European agglomerations, based
  on Urban Audits Larger Urban Zones
• Imagery reference year 2006 (/- 1 year)
• Project duration 2009-2011

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Main features

• Thematic classes based on CORINE Land Cover
  nomenclature
• But more specific for built-up areas, and less
  specific outside urban areas
• Geometric resolution of 110,000
• Minimum mapping unit of 0.25 ha in urban areas, 1
  ha in other areas

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CORINE Land Cover
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Urban Atlas
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SPOT / ALOS images
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Production

• Mix of automatic classification and
  photo-interpretation
• Various data sources used, depending on thematic
  classes

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Thematic classes

• Residential areas use of soil sealing layer to
  distinguish between density classes

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Thematic classes

• Non-residential urban areas
• Detailed transport network layer (COTS)
• Local maps as auxiliary source of information

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Thematic classes

• Other classes
• Less thematic detail for agricultural, natural
  and forest areas (and MMU 1 ha)

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Dissemination

• Georeferenced layers are freely available
• Data download
• http//www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/data/urban
  -atlas
• Map viewer http//dataservice.eea.europa.eu/map/U
  rbanAtlasbeta/

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Derived indicators

• Can be exploited at the level of Urban Audit
  units
• Larger Urban Zone (LUZ), kernel, city, sub-city
  districts (SCD)
• Land cover/use surface breakdown
• Green urban areas per inhabitant
• A sprawl index (ESPON project) www.espon.eu

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The future of the Urban Atlas

• Repeat Urban Atlas in order to create a detailed
  dynamic view on urban land cover/use
• Coherence with other data collection projects is
  important
• Census 2011
• Urban Audit
• Consequences
• Define imagery acquisition requirements (2011 /-
  year)
• Update methodology, including change detection,
  to be determined
• Ensure compatibility with revised Urban Audit
  following new harmonised definition