Land-use monitoring by topographic data analysis

The rate of land consumption is an important factor to be considered within policies on sustainable land use aiming to reduce demand for settlement and traffic areas. As an expression of the political intent to achieve sustainable development, the German government announced to reduce the consumption of open space for settlement or transportation infrastructure significantly by 2020. Progress toward such specific goals can, of course, only be monitored if planning authorities are supplied with up-to-date and precise information on land use. This article presents one approach to the calculation of trends in land use that uses geoprocessing of topographic base data. Among the advantages of this approach are the nationwide availability of data with homogeneous quality and regular mandatory updating by surveying authorities. The spatial analysis of topographic base data is currently a highly automated process, which means geoprocessing procedures can be repeated regularly in order to realize time series. Such systematic monitoring of land use is undertaken by the project Monitor of Settlement and Open Space Development (IOER Monitor). By mid-2013, the fourth time period based on data from 2012 will be available online, ensuring that information on a wide range of land-use types is provided for a time series beginning back in 2006. Thus, the IOER Monitor is a convenient tool for the analysis and monitoring of land use for all administrative units ranging from German municipalities (approximately 12,000 in number) to the country as a whole, as well as for raster cells ranging from 100 m to 10 km. Keywords: land-use statisticsgeoprocessingautomated data analysis Acknowledgments The authors acknowledge the yearly data provided by the Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy, which was crucial for the development of the land-use monitoring. Further, we cordially appreciate the remarks of the reviewers and editors for giving constructive and helpful comments to improve the quality of this article. Notes