Integrating the MOLAND and the Urban Atlas geo-databases to analyse urban growth in European cities

The MOLAND and the Urban Atlas are two well-known, detailed datasets of land use/cover information focused on European cities. The MOLAND contains a unique time-series of land use/cover changes for more than 30 urban areas covering a wide temporal window (1950 to late-1990s). The Urban Atlas is a more recent project which mapped land use/cover for more than 300 cities for the year 2006. In this paper we integrate both datasets in order to produce a single geo-database covering an extended time-series spanning from 1950 until 2006. The different cartographic specifications of the two input datasets, particularly in terms of spatial and thematic resolution impeded a straightforward integration. A methodology was therefore set-up to harmonize the two datasets and merge them into a consistent and comparable geo-database that can be easily queried and used for both visual and analytical purposes. The usefulness of the newly integrated geo-database was demonstrated by some exploratory analyses of the urban dynamics occurred during the time-span of the combined geo-database. We further discuss the role of time-series of land use/cover data, and draw recommendations and directions for future work and research.JRC.H.8-Sustainability Assessmen