LUCAS cover photos 2006–2018 over the EU: 874 646 spatially distributed geo-tagged close-up photos with land cover and plant species label

In the European Union, a tri-annual surveyed sample collects land cover and land use information under the Land Use/Cover Area frame Survey since 2006. A total of um{1351293} observations at 651780 unique locations for 106 variables along with 5.4 million landscape and point photos were collected during five LUCAS surveys. In addition to these photos, an additional set of previously unpublished LUCAS Cover photos were also taken, i.e. following the protocol, a close-up view of the tree, crop, and plant species. These photos contain more details so that tree, crop, and plant species should be identifiable. Between 2006 and 2018, 875661 LUCAS Cover photos that show the relevant land cover in its entirety were collected. Due to surveyor differences, the images sometimes display elements that require a two-stage deep learning anonymization process, after which 346 photos were removed before publication. This paper summarizes the collection of LUCAS Cover photos, the filtering for mandatory privacy issues, and provides links to download the data along with the photo metadata, and cross-links to the corresponding LUCAS harmonised survey data. Moreover, after presenting the final public and open dataset https://jeodpp.jrc.ec.europa.eu/ftp/jrc-opendata/LUCAS/LUCAS_COVER/), potential applications relying on recent advances in geo-spatial analysis and statistical learning such as large scale biodiversity monitoring are discussed.

D'ANDRIMONT Raphael;  YORDANOV Momchil;  MARTINEZ SANCHEZ Laura;  HAUB Peter;  BUCK Olivier;  HAUB Carsten;  EISELT Beatrice;  VAN DER VELDE Marijn; 

2022-10-03

COPERNICUS GESELLSCHAFT MBH

JRC128959

1866-3508 (online),   

https://essd.copernicus.org/articles/14/4463/2022/,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC128959,   

10.5194/essd-14-4463-2022 (online),