Gridded population density in the eu from commune data and land cover information

Javier Gallego, Joint Research Centre of the EU

Population data in the European Union are available at the level of the commune. More detailed data are often confidential of difficult to map. On the other hand CORINE Land Cover (CLC) provides georeferenced land cover information with a medium resolution (minimum mapping unit: 25 ha). This paper describes the approach followed to combine commune population data with CLC to produce a EU-wide grid with 1 ha resolution with downscaled population density. An iterative algorithm was first developed to estimate coefficients of a simple multiplicative model. In a further stage the information provided by the point survey LUCAS (Land Use/Cover Area frame Survey) has been integrated through a logit regression to improve the coefficients of the model. Some examples of application are presented: an attempt of automatic definition of urban agglomerations and the estimation of the population living less than 10 km from the coast.