European and International Framework

Information on land occupation at the global level is mainly characterised by its heterogeneity. If at continental or national level there are proven projects of this type of data, at the global level what prevails are initiatives and policies that demand their maintenance, dissemination and use in a more diverse manner.

There is no global reference land occupation database, the alternative is to obtain environmental indicators or parameters mainly from satellite images (e.g. leaf area index, soil moisture, fraction of green cover, etc.). These, by means of easy-to-obtain numerical values, are able to give a broad outline of all international territories in a simple and quick way, without the need to resort to a classical land occupation product.