The ortho-rectified satellite input data for this GMES Land monitoring service will be made available through the GMES satellite image Data Warehouse set up by and hosted at the European Space Agency (ESA).

The 5 high resolution layers (HRL) deal with following topics:

• Artificial surfaces: mapping of imperviousness as land cover characteristic based on high resolution satellite images, together with mapping of changes in imperviousness.

• Forest areas: mapping of forest cover characteristics i.e. tree cover density and forest type based on high resolution satellite images. (The service should also support a forest cover map to be produced with an MMU of 0.5 ha in line with Member State requirements for their reporting obligations to UN-ECE8 / FAO9.)

• Agricultural areas: mapping of permanent grassland with possible distinction of agricultural/semi-natural areas.

• Wetlands: mapping of wetlands for designated areas of international importance, (e.g. from the Ramsar Convention10 and European classifications).

• Water bodies: mapping of small inland and coastal surface water based on high resolution satellite images (e.g. water body layer for WISE).