Integrating the MOLAND and the Urban Atlas Geo-databases to Analyze Urban Growth in European Cities

The MOLAND (MOnitoring LANd use/cover Dynamics) and the Urban Atlas (UA) are two well-known, detailed data sets of land use/cover information focused on European cities. The MOLAND data set contains a unique time series of land use/cover changes for more than thirty urban areas covering a wide temporal window (1950 to late 1990s). The UA is a more recent project that mapped land use/cover for more than 300 cities for the year 2006. In this paper we discuss the integration of both data sets in order to produce a single geo-database covering an extended time series spanning from 1950 to 2006. The different cartographic specifications of the two input data sets, particularly in terms of spatial and thematic resolution, impeded a straightforward integration. A methodology was therefore set up to harmonize the two data sets 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 that 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.