Annual soil cover map (Year BAK), 1 m resolution, 2018

The annual soil cover map (Year BAK) for Flanders at 1 m resolution indicates for each cell whether or not it has been covered. The JaarBAK is available annually from 2013. The White Paper on Space Policy Plan defines ‘soil cover’ as the area whose nature and/or condition of the soil surface has been altered by the application of artificial, (semi-) impermeable materials, thereby losing essential ecosystem functions of the soil (houses, roads, other constructions...). This definition is based on the one used by the European Commission for ‘soil sealing’: the destruction or covering of soils by buildings, constructions and layers of completely or partly impermeable artificial material (asphalt, concrete, etc.). It is the most intense form of land take and is essentially an irreversible process. For this map, soil cover is first predicted by a machine learning model based on the mid-scale winter air recordings of Flanders. This modelled soil cover is then combined with vector information about water, buildings, roads and railways from the Large Scale Reference File. For more details on the method used for drawing up the JaarBAK, please refer to the technical report ‘Annual soil cover map Flanders’ at https://archief.onderzoek.omgeving.vlaanderen.be/Onderzoek-3331558.