Recent Advances in the EAGLE Concept—Monitoring the Earth’s Surface Based on a New Land Characterisation Approach

Stephan Arnold, Geoffrey Smith (), Geir-Harald Strand, Gerard Hazeu, Michael Bock, Barbara Kosztra, Christoph Perger, Gebhard Banko, Tomas Soukup, Nuria Valcarcel Sanz, Stefan Kleeschulte, Julián Delgado Hernández and Emanuele Mancosu
Additional contact information
Stephan Arnold: Geo Concept, Gärtnerweg 49, 60322 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Geoffrey Smith: Specto Natura Ltd., 9 College Road, Impington, Cambridge CB24 9PL, UK
Geir-Harald Strand: Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research, NO-1431 Ås, Norway
Gerard Hazeu: Wageningen Environmental Research, Droevendaalsesteeg 3, 6708 PB Wageningen, The Netherlands
Michael Bock: EO4Earth, German Aerospace Research and Technology Centre, Königswinterer Strass 522-524, 53227 Bonn, Germany
Barbara Kosztra: Lechner Non-Profit Ltd., 59 Budafoki Str. E/3, H-1111 Budapest, Hungary
Christoph Perger: Spatial Focus GmbH, Absberggasse 27/7/3, 1100 Vienna, Austria
Gebhard Banko: Environment Agency Austria, Spittelauer Lände 5, 1090 Vienna, Austria
Tomas Soukup: Gisat, Milady Horákové 57a, 170 00 Prague, Czech Republic
Nuria Valcarcel Sanz: Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, Paseo de la Castellana, 162, 28064 Madrid, Spain
Stefan Kleeschulte: Space4environment Sàrl, 48, rue Gabriel Lippmann, L-6947 Niederanven, Luxembourg
Julián Delgado Hernández: Spanish National Geographic Institute, Calle del Gral. Ibáñez de Ibero, 3, Chamberí, 28003 Madrid, Spain
Emanuele Mancosu: European Topic Centre, University of Malaga, Edificio de Investigación Ada Byron, Arquitecto Francisco Peñalosa, 18, Campanillas, 29010 Málaga, Spain

Land, 2025, vol. 14, issue 8, 1-27

Abstract: The demand for land monitoring information continues to increase, but the range and diversity of the available products to date have made their integrated use challenging and, at times, counterproductive. There has therefore been a growing need to enhance and harmonise the practice of land monitoring on a pan-European level with the formulation of a more consistent and standardised set of modelling criteria. The outcome has been a paradigm shift away from a “paper map”-based world where features are given a single, fixed label to one where features have a rich characterisation which is more informative, flexible and powerful. The approach allows the characteristics to be dynamic so that, over time, a feature may only change part of its description (i.e., a forest can be felled, but it may remain as forestry if replanted) or it can have multiple descriptors (i.e., a forest may be used for both timber production and recreation). The concept proposed by the authors has evolved since 2008 from first drafts to a comprehensive and powerful tool adopted by the European Union’s Copernicus programme. It provides for the semantic decomposition of existing nomenclatures, as well as supports a descriptive approach to the mapping of all landscape features in a flexible and object-oriented manner. In this way, the key move away from classification towards the characterisation of the Earth’s surface represents a novel and innovate approach to handling complex land surface information more suited to the age of distributed databases, cloud computing and object-oriented data modelling. In this paper, the motivation for and technical approach of the EAGLE concept with its matrix and UML model implementation are explained. This is followed by an update of the latest developments and the presentation of a number of experimental and operational use cases at national and European levels, and it then concludes with thoughts on the future outlook.

Keywords: land cover; land use; classification; characterisation; object oriented; modelling; semantic analysis; descriptive composition (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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