ETC DI Report 2026/07 Geospatial datasets in support of the LULUCF regulation

This report assesses the suitability of Copernicus Land Monitoring Service (CLMS) datasets for quantifying urban vegetation across the European Union, in support of biomass carbon stock and GHG fluxes estimation under the LULUCF sub-categories settlements remaining settlements and land converted to settlements. It applies the methodological framework of the 2006 IPCC Guidelines and the 2019 Refinement and responds to the reporting requirements of the Governance Regulation (EU) 2018/1999, supporting Member States in upgrading their LULUCF GHG inventory methods to at least Tier 2. As its main output, the analysis identifies the most suitable combinations of CLMS datasets for delineating settlement area outlines and quantifying crown cover for each Member State. Settlement area figures derived from CLMS data are benchmarked against official areas reported in the National Inventory Reports (NIRs). The comparison reveals differences in dataset performance across Member States and shows that no single combination is optimal for all countries. Crown cover area figures, largely unreported in Member States’ LULUCF submissions, are compared with independent estimates from Liu et al. (2023). The report provides country-specific recommendations for quantifying urban vegetation using harmonised, openly available Earth observation (EO) data. The results of the analysis are available as additional documents at the end of this page: 1) Summary statistics of settlement area by country, and selection of the best-fitting CLMS data combination; 2) Share of urban tree crown cover by country using various CLMS datasets; 3) Comparison of CLMS-based urban tree crown cover estimates with Liu et al. (2023). This report was developed together with the ETC CM Guidance for estimating GHG emissions and removals of biomass in Settlements, which focuses on the policy aspects and implementation of the LULUCF requirements, with recommendations for inventory compilers less familiar with EO and CLMS data. This report is its technical complement, providing an in-depth geospatial analysis of woody vegetation in settlements, with detailed statistical analysis and practical examples.

30 Oct 2026

Stefan Kleeschulte (s4e), Andrea Peters (s4e), Carmen Schmid (UBA), Gergely Maucha (Lechner), Michael Weiss (UBA), Erwin Moldaschl (UBA), Maria Ricci (s4e), Marco Cattaneo (s4e), Alexander Frost (s4e)