Land use and land cover

The first area accounting system of Norway was published in 1981. Aerial photos were used for interpreting land use and land cover. The method was time consuming and was abandoned after the test period.

The establishment of the National register of Ground, Addresses and Buildings (GAB) gave new possibilities for land use statistics. Methods were developed and statistics produced by Engebretsen (1989, 1993).

Automatic digital methods for the delimitation of urban settlements were conducted (Dysterud et al. 1999) and methodical studies of land use statistics were carried out (Engelien 2000, Bloch 2002). In 2005 Land use in urban settlements, based on point datasets and buffer methods, were published. This attempt was not repeated.

By 2011 the available data and the method of delimiting areas had improved immensely, and the method described below was developed. The most important improvement was the use of property boundaries from the Cadastral register and the nation wide land resource map (AR-STAT) from the Norwegian Forest and Landscape Institute. Statistics on Land use in urban settlements based on theese accurate data was first published in 2011, then yearly since 2013.