METADATA FILE

I.  General description of data set
-----------------------------------

Name
	Land Cover for Baltic Sea drainage basin region

Geographic Level
	Regional

Specific Area
	Baltic Sea drainage basin region

Lat/Long Region Boundaries
	NW-X:           0-E     ,       SW-X:           0-E
	NW-Y:           75-N    ,       SW-Y:           45-N
	SE-X:           40-E    ,       NE-X:           40-E
	SE-Y:           45-N    ,       NE-Y:           75-N

Infoterra Keyword(s)
	Land use classification (12136)

Other Keyword(s)
	Land cover

Primary Data Acquisition Period
	Start Date: 1981
	End Date: 1992

Supplier
	GRID-Arendal. PO Box 1602, Myrene. N-4801 Arendal, Norway.

Contributor
	GRID-Arendal. PO Box 1602, Myrene. N-4801 Arendal, Norway.

Publication Reference
	Langaas, S. 1993.  Some Georeferenced Data Sets for use within 
		Sub-project 1; Land Use and Ecological Carrying Capacity, 
		of the Baltic Drainage Basin Project.  Technical Note. 
		GRID-Arendal. 10 pages + apps.

	Sweitzer, J., Langaas, S., and Folke, C. 1996.  Land Use and 
		Population Density in the Baltic Sea Drainage Basin: A GIS 
		database. AMBIO 25(3):191-198.

Documentation (overview)
		The Baltic Sea drainage basin Land Cover data set was
	derived from two principle sources:  the Digital Chart of the World 
	(DCW) and the European Space Agency (ESA) Remote Sensing Forest Map 
	of Europe.  DCW is a 1:1,000,000 scale global vector database created 
	by Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI).  The ESA forest 
	map was generated using the NOAA-11 AVHRR 5 channel sensor with a 
	1 km pixel.  The raster data was later vectorised.
		Data for the Baltic region was clipped from the original 
	sources.  DCW was used to extract urban areas, open water, and 
	glacier land cover classes.  Open land and forest land cover classes
	were extracted from the ESA map.  Both data sets were converted into
	IDRISI images.
		When combining both data sets, a artifact land cover class 
	called Unknown Land was generated.  This class is located where there 
	were inconsistencies in land/ocean and land/water delineations
	between the two data sets and the 'Unknown' class is either Forest or
	Open Land.  A total of six land cover classes were generated: Forest, 
	Open Land, Urban, Open Water, Glacier, and Unknown Land.
		The IDRISI Land Cover image was converted into ARC/INFO         
	vector coverages, for PC ARC/INFO uses.  Due to ARC/INFO limitations
	concerning number of arcs per polygon, the image was sub-sampled to 
	a 5 km cell size and then divided into six tiles.  For those ARC/INFO
	users that are not affected by such limitations (i.e., ARC/INFO 7.0),
	then we suggest to convert the LANDCOV.GIS 1 km resolution ERDAS
	Version 7.4 file into a complete, continuous vector coverage.
	
************************************************************************
Contact information
	Hugo Ahlenius                           phone:  +47-370-35650 
	UNEP/GRID-Arendal                       fax:    +47-370-35050 
	                                        e-mail: mapmaster@grida.no
	
   
II.  Detailed description of data set (members)
----------------------------------------------- 
Data set type
	ERDAS Version 7.4 file

Description
	LAND_GIS.GIS - Land Cover, for whole Baltic region

File Size
	10.4 MB 

Access
	Free access, unrestricted

Copies (available sites)
	CD-ROM - can be prepared by GRID-Arendal
	World Wide Web (WWW), GRID-Arendal
	       URL - http://www.grida.no/

III.  Technical information about vector data: 
---------------------------------------------

***  IF ERDAS FILE IS CONVERTED TO ARC/INFO POLYGON COVERAGE

Source Data set
	IDRISI 1 km Land Cover image converted to ERDAS Version 7.4 file

Scale/Resolution
	Smallest unit is a 1 km x 1 km square polygon

Feature Type
	Polygon

Number of Polygons
	141507

Projection Name
	Lambert Azimuthal Equal Area

Projection Parameters
	Units: meters
	Spheroid: International 1909
	Radius: 6,378,388
	Longitude of centre of projection: 20.00.00
	Latitude of centre of projection:  60.00.00
	False Easting: 0
	False Northing: 0

Projection boundaries
	Xmin: -1,000,000        Ymin:          0 
	Xmax:  1,000,000        Ymax:  1,300,000

Attributes                     Brief description

	Area,13,13,n,6          Area of polygon
	Perimeter,13,13,n,6     Perimeter of polygon
	Land_gis_,11,11,n,0     Internal coverage record value
	Land_gis_id,11,11,n,0   Internal coverage polygon ID
	Grid-code,5,5,n,0       Land cover type value (1-6)
		
		Grid-code = 0 = No Data
		Grid-code = 1 = Forest
		Grid-code = 2 = Open Land
		Grid-code = 3 = Urban Land
		Grid-code = 4 = Open Water
		Grid-code = 5 = Glacier
		Grid-code = 6 = Unknown Land


IV.  Technical information about raster data:
---------------------------------------------

*** IF ERDAS FILE CONVERTED INTO ARC/INFO GRID

Cell Size
	Height: 1000 meters
	Width:  1000 meters

Number of Rows
	2600

Number of Columns
	2000

Projection Name
	Lambert Azimuthal Equal Area

Projection Parameters
	Units: meters
	Spheroid: International 1909
	Radius: 6,378,388
	Longitude of centre of projection: 20.00.00
	Latitude of centre of projection:  60.00.00
	False Easting: 0
	False Northing: 0

Projection boundaries
	Xmin: -1,000,000        Ymin: -1,300,000 
	Xmax:  1,000,000        Ymax:  1,300,000