Article 8(1) by commune, with the Commission’s method
CSV1 row1 KBcomputed 2026-09-26
The share of urban green and tree canopy in each commune (LAU) and in its urban centres and clusters, and whether the commune passes the exemption of Article 8(1): more than 45% green and more than 10% canopy.
No significance threshold: a stateCC BY 4.0
Download CSV ↓Method, source and columns+
- Method
- The EEA and JRC script NRR_Art8 repeated on open data: LAU 2024 × the 1 km² grid of urban centres and clusters 2021; the share of a class's pixels inside the polygon, by pixel centre.
- Source
- Copernicus CLCplus Backbone 2021 (10 m), HRL Woody Vegetation Layer 2021 (5 m), HRL Tree Cover Density 2018 (10 m); Eurostat LAU 2024, degree of urbanisation 2024, clusters 2021.
- Threshold
- No significance threshold: this layer is a state or a recommendation, not a measured change.
- Limits
- Green from CLCplus 2021, where the Regulation names 2023; canopy from WVL 2021, allowed for draft plans only.
- Matching CLCplus classes to Article 3(20) is our reading; the verdict was re-checked with arable land as green and without water.
- Licence
- CC BY 4.0
- Credit
- © European Union, Copernicus Land Monitoring Service, European Environment Agency (CLCplus Backbone 2021, HRL Woody Vegetation Layer 2021, HRL Tree Cover Density 2018)
- Eurostat GISCO: LAU 2024, degree of urbanisation 2024, urban centres and clusters 2021; © EuroGeographics for the administrative boundaries
| Column | What it holds |
|---|
| lau_id | LAU code (BE_ + NIS code) |
|---|
| name | commune |
|---|
| degurba | degree of urbanisation (1 = city) |
|---|
| population | residents (LAU 2024) |
|---|
| area_km2_official | official area, km² |
|---|
| area_km2_all | measured area, km² |
|---|
| green_all | green share, whole LAU |
|---|
| green_with7_all | green share counting arable land |
|---|
| green_no_water_all | green share without water |
|---|
| sealed_all | sealed share, whole LAU |
|---|
| canopy_wvl_all | woody vegetation share, whole LAU |
|---|
| tcd_all | mean tree cover density, whole LAU |
|---|
| tcd_any_all | share of pixels with any tree cover |
|---|
| area_km2_ucuc | area inside urban centres and clusters, km² |
|---|
| green_ucuc | green share inside urban centres and clusters (the test's green) |
|---|
| green_with7_ucuc | the same, counting arable land |
|---|
| green_no_water_ucuc | the same, without water |
|---|
| sealed_ucuc | sealed share inside centres and clusters |
|---|
| canopy_wvl_ucuc | woody vegetation share inside centres and clusters (the test's canopy) |
|---|
| tcd_ucuc | mean tree cover density inside |
|---|
| tcd_any_ucuc | share of pixels with any tree cover inside |
|---|
| exempt | True when the commune passes the exemption |
|---|
| reason | why it does not pass, in numbers |
|---|
| exempt_with7 | the verdict counting arable land |
|---|
| exempt_no_water | the verdict without water |
|---|
| green_ucuc_statbel | green share with the commune built from Statbel sectors |
|---|
| canopy_wvl_ucuc_statbel | canopy share, the same way |
|---|
| exempt_statbel | the verdict, the same way |
|---|
| stable | True when the verdict holds under every reading above |
|---|
The zero measurement by commune, in hectares
CSV1 row1 KBcomputed 2026-09-26
For each commune, the area of its urban ecosystem and the green and tree canopy inside it, in hectares and per cent, for both boundaries the Commission leaves to the country: the urban centres and clusters inside the commune, and the whole commune. The form of the Dutch national zero measurement (PBL, 25 August 2026).
No significance threshold: a stateCC BY 4.0
Download CSV ↓Method, source and columns+
- Method
- The shares of the layer above multiplied by the area they were measured on: nothing is recomputed. A city of several communes adds a row for all of them together.
- Source
- Frondia’s repeat of the EEA and JRC script NRR_Art8 (the layer above); Copernicus CLCplus Backbone 2021, HRL Woody Vegetation Layer 2021; Eurostat LAU 2024, urban centres and clusters 2021.
- Threshold
- No significance threshold: a level for one year, not a change. The Commission’s own format carries no threshold either; whether anything changed beyond noise is the layer under “What changed”.
- Limits
- 2021 data: the Commission allows the Woody Vegetation Layer 2021 for draft plans only.
- Hectares are the pixels' area inside the 1:1M boundary, not the land register.
- Matching CLCplus classes to Article 3(20) is our reading: see the sensitivity table.
- Licence
- CC BY 4.0
- Credit
- © European Union, Copernicus Land Monitoring Service, European Environment Agency (CLCplus Backbone 2021, HRL Woody Vegetation Layer 2021, HRL Tree Cover Density 2018)
- Eurostat GISCO: LAU 2024, degree of urbanisation 2024, urban centres and clusters 2021; © EuroGeographics for the administrative boundaries
| Column | What it holds |
|---|
| lau_id | LAU code as the Commission writes it (lau2024.BE.<NIS code>); empty on the row for all communes together |
|---|
| name | commune |
|---|
| population | residents (LAU 2024) |
|---|
| uea_ucuc_ha | urban ecosystem as urban centres and clusters inside the commune, hectares |
|---|
| green_ucuc_ha | green inside it, hectares |
|---|
| green_ucuc_pct | green inside it, per cent (the exemption's green) |
|---|
| canopy_ucuc_ha | tree canopy inside it, hectares |
|---|
| canopy_ucuc_pct | tree canopy inside it, per cent (the exemption's canopy) |
|---|
| uea_lau_ha | urban ecosystem as the whole commune, hectares |
|---|
| green_lau_ha | green in the whole commune, hectares |
|---|
| green_lau_pct | green in the whole commune, per cent |
|---|
| canopy_lau_ha | tree canopy in the whole commune, hectares |
|---|
| canopy_lau_pct | tree canopy in the whole commune, per cent |
|---|
| exempt | True when more than 45% green and more than 10% canopy in urban centres and clusters |
|---|
| stable | True when the verdict holds under every reading of the sensitivity table |
|---|
How the exemption verdict depends on the reading
CSV4 rows1 KBcomputed 2026-09-26
The Article 8(1) verdict of each commune under every reading the test runs: the official one, arable land counted as green, water not counted as green, and the commune built from Statbel sectors instead of the 1:1M boundary.
No significance threshold: a stateCC BY 4.0
Download CSV ↓Method, source and columns+
- Method
- The thresholds of Article 8(1), more than 45% green and more than 10% canopy, applied to the shares of each reading.
- Source
- Frondia’s repeat of NRR_Art8 (the layer “Article 8(1) by commune”).
- Threshold
- No significance threshold: a level for one year, not a change. The Commission’s own format carries no threshold either; whether anything changed beyond noise is the layer under “What changed”.
- Limits
- Only the readings the test runs: other boundaries a country may choose were not tried.
- Licence
- CC BY 4.0
- Credit
- © European Union, Copernicus Land Monitoring Service, European Environment Agency (CLCplus Backbone 2021, HRL Woody Vegetation Layer 2021, HRL Tree Cover Density 2018)
- Eurostat GISCO: LAU 2024, degree of urbanisation 2024, urban centres and clusters 2021; © EuroGeographics for the administrative boundaries
| Column | What it holds |
|---|
| lau_id | LAU code (lau2024.BE.<NIS code>) |
|---|
| name | commune |
|---|
| reading | official, with_arable, without_water or statbel_sectors |
|---|
| green_pct | green in urban centres and clusters under this reading, per cent |
|---|
| canopy_pct | tree canopy there, per cent |
|---|
| exempt | the verdict under this reading (empty where the reading was not computed) |
|---|
The Reportnet file, centres and clusters
GeoPackage1 polygon40 KBcomputed 2026-09-26
t8_UEAPolygons: one polygon per commune with the area of tree canopy (area_tcc) and of urban green (area_ugs) in km², the urban ecosystem taken as the urban centres and clusters inside the commune. The schema of the Commission’s own example, field by field.
No significance threshold: a stateCC BY 4.0
Download GeoPackage ↓Method, source and columns+
- Method
- The commune’s LAU 2024 polygon (Eurostat GISCO, EPSG:3035) with the areas of the layers above; area_tcc as text with five decimals, as the Commission’s script rounds it.
- Source
- Schema: EEA and JRC, github.com/eea/NRR_Art8 (commit of 22 September 2026). Numbers: Frondia’s repeat of that script on open data.
- Threshold
- No significance threshold: a level for one year, not a change. The Commission’s own format carries no threshold either; whether anything changed beyond noise is the layer under “What changed”.
- Limits
- A draft on 2021 data: the Woody Vegetation Layer 2021 is allowed for draft plans only.
- area_ugs is empty in the Commission’s example; here it is our reading of Article 3(20) in CLCplus classes.
- uea_id is empty, as in the example: the country assigns it.
- No R-tree spatial index (optional in GeoPackage); GIS software builds one on opening if it needs it.
- Licence
- CC BY 4.0
- Credit
- © European Union, Copernicus Land Monitoring Service, European Environment Agency (CLCplus Backbone 2021, HRL Woody Vegetation Layer 2021, HRL Tree Cover Density 2018)
- Eurostat GISCO: LAU 2024, degree of urbanisation 2024, urban centres and clusters 2021; © EuroGeographics for the administrative boundaries
| Column | What it holds |
|---|
| fid | feature id, inherited from GISCO’s LAU layer as in the example |
|---|
| geom | the commune’s polygon, MULTIPOLYGON, EPSG:3035 |
|---|
| uea_id | urban ecosystem id, empty |
|---|
| lau_id | LAU code (lau2024.BE.<NIS code>) |
|---|
| area_tcc | tree canopy (Woody Vegetation Layer) in the urban ecosystem, km², text |
|---|
| area_ugs | urban green (CLCplus, our reading of Article 3(20)) in the urban ecosystem, km² |
|---|
The Reportnet file, whole commune
GeoPackage1 polygon40 KBcomputed 2026-09-26
t8_UEAPolygons: one polygon per commune with the area of tree canopy (area_tcc) and of urban green (area_ugs) in km², the urban ecosystem taken as the whole commune. The schema of the Commission’s own example, field by field.
No significance threshold: a stateCC BY 4.0
Download GeoPackage ↓Method, source and columns+
- Method
- The commune’s LAU 2024 polygon (Eurostat GISCO, EPSG:3035) with the areas of the layers above; area_tcc as text with five decimals, as the Commission’s script rounds it.
- Source
- Schema: EEA and JRC, github.com/eea/NRR_Art8 (commit of 22 September 2026). Numbers: Frondia’s repeat of that script on open data.
- Threshold
- No significance threshold: a level for one year, not a change. The Commission’s own format carries no threshold either; whether anything changed beyond noise is the layer under “What changed”.
- Limits
- A draft on 2021 data: the Woody Vegetation Layer 2021 is allowed for draft plans only.
- area_ugs is empty in the Commission’s example; here it is our reading of Article 3(20) in CLCplus classes.
- uea_id is empty, as in the example: the country assigns it.
- No R-tree spatial index (optional in GeoPackage); GIS software builds one on opening if it needs it.
- Licence
- CC BY 4.0
- Credit
- © European Union, Copernicus Land Monitoring Service, European Environment Agency (CLCplus Backbone 2021, HRL Woody Vegetation Layer 2021, HRL Tree Cover Density 2018)
- Eurostat GISCO: LAU 2024, degree of urbanisation 2024, urban centres and clusters 2021; © EuroGeographics for the administrative boundaries
| Column | What it holds |
|---|
| fid | feature id, inherited from GISCO’s LAU layer as in the example |
|---|
| geom | the commune’s polygon, MULTIPOLYGON, EPSG:3035 |
|---|
| uea_id | urban ecosystem id, empty |
|---|
| lau_id | LAU code (lau2024.BE.<NIS code>) |
|---|
| area_tcc | tree canopy (Woody Vegetation Layer) in the urban ecosystem, km², text |
|---|
| area_ugs | urban green (CLCplus, our reading of Article 3(20)) in the urban ecosystem, km² |
|---|
Since the 2024 base, in hectares: summer 2025
CSV287 rows48 KBcomputed 2026-09-26
For each sector, urban green (the Regulation’s reading: trees, grass, shrub and water, not farmland), tree canopy and built-up ground in hectares in summer 2024 and summer 2025, and the change beyond noise against twelve matched places.
Threshold 0.0611CC BY 4.0
Download CSV ↓Method, source and columns+
- Method
- Each summer, the class with the highest mean Dynamic World probability wins each 10 m pixel; a class’s share of the sector times its area gives hectares. The effect is the sector’s change in share minus its matched places’ mean change (the most alike in 2024 by greenness and surface temperature, none closer than 1.5 km); times the area, hectares beyond what comparable places did.
- Source
- Dynamic World V1; Copernicus Sentinel-2 greenness and Landsat surface temperature of summer 2024 for the matching; Statbel sectors and population.
- Threshold
- Green 0.0611, canopy 0.0453, built-up 0.0534 (share of the sector's area): the 95th percentile of this run's own null distribution, each class and season on its own — every sector plays “intervention” once against its 12 matched places.
- Limits
- Hectares as Dynamic World classifies the ground: not the official CLCplus and Woody Vegetation layers, and not the land register.
- One summer against another is noisier than a four-year window.
- The raw hectares include the classes’ shift from one summer to the next; only the effect subtracts it.
- A park that loses trees can read as more built-up when a mixed pixel changes class.
- Licence
- CC BY 4.0
- Credit
- Dynamic World V1 (Google, World Resources Institute), CC BY 4.0
- Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2016–2026)
- Landsat Collection 2 courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey
- Source: Statbel (Directorate-General Statistics – Statistics Belgium), CC BY 4.0; aggregated and joined by Frondia
| Column | What it holds |
|---|
| id | Statbel statistical sector code (the join key of every layer) |
|---|
| name | sector name, as Statbel writes it |
|---|
| commune | commune |
|---|
| area_ha | area, hectares |
|---|
| population | residents |
|---|
| green_2024_ha | urban green, summer 2024, hectares |
|---|
| green_2025_ha | urban green, summer 2025, hectares |
|---|
| green_raw_ha | urban green: summer 2025 minus summer 2024, hectares, without matched places |
|---|
| green_eff | urban green: the change in share minus the matched places’ mean change |
|---|
| green_eff_ha | urban green: that effect in hectares |
|---|
| green_verdict | urban green: up, down, noise or refused |
|---|
| trees_2024_ha | tree canopy, summer 2024, hectares |
|---|
| trees_2025_ha | tree canopy, summer 2025, hectares |
|---|
| trees_raw_ha | tree canopy: summer 2025 minus summer 2024, hectares, without matched places |
|---|
| trees_eff | tree canopy: the change in share minus the matched places’ mean change |
|---|
| trees_eff_ha | tree canopy: that effect in hectares |
|---|
| trees_verdict | tree canopy: up, down, noise or refused |
|---|
| built_2024_ha | built-up, summer 2024, hectares |
|---|
| built_2025_ha | built-up, summer 2025, hectares |
|---|
| built_raw_ha | built-up: summer 2025 minus summer 2024, hectares, without matched places |
|---|
| built_eff | built-up: the change in share minus the matched places’ mean change |
|---|
| built_eff_ha | built-up: that effect in hectares |
|---|
| built_verdict | built-up: up, down, noise or refused |
|---|
| gap | greenness in 2024, the sector minus its matched places (above 0.04 in absolute value: refused) |
|---|
| comparable | True when the matched places are comparable |
|---|
Since the 2024 base, in hectares: summer 2026
CSV287 rows48 KBcomputed 2026-09-26
For each sector, urban green (the Regulation’s reading: trees, grass, shrub and water, not farmland), tree canopy and built-up ground in hectares in summer 2024 and summer 2026, and the change beyond noise against twelve matched places.
Threshold 0.0731CC BY 4.0
Download CSV ↓Method, source and columns+
- Method
- Each summer, the class with the highest mean Dynamic World probability wins each 10 m pixel; a class’s share of the sector times its area gives hectares. The effect is the sector’s change in share minus its matched places’ mean change (the most alike in 2024 by greenness and surface temperature, none closer than 1.5 km); times the area, hectares beyond what comparable places did.
- Source
- Dynamic World V1; Copernicus Sentinel-2 greenness and Landsat surface temperature of summer 2024 for the matching; Statbel sectors and population.
- Threshold
- Green 0.0731, canopy 0.0608, built-up 0.0616 (share of the sector's area): the 95th percentile of this run's own null distribution, each class and season on its own — every sector plays “intervention” once against its 12 matched places.
- Limits
- Hectares as Dynamic World classifies the ground: not the official CLCplus and Woody Vegetation layers, and not the land register.
- One summer against another is noisier than a four-year window.
- The raw hectares include the classes’ shift from one summer to the next; only the effect subtracts it.
- A park that loses trees can read as more built-up when a mixed pixel changes class.
- Licence
- CC BY 4.0
- Credit
- Dynamic World V1 (Google, World Resources Institute), CC BY 4.0
- Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2016–2026)
- Landsat Collection 2 courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey
- Source: Statbel (Directorate-General Statistics – Statistics Belgium), CC BY 4.0; aggregated and joined by Frondia
| Column | What it holds |
|---|
| id | Statbel statistical sector code (the join key of every layer) |
|---|
| name | sector name, as Statbel writes it |
|---|
| commune | commune |
|---|
| area_ha | area, hectares |
|---|
| population | residents |
|---|
| green_2024_ha | urban green, summer 2024, hectares |
|---|
| green_2026_ha | urban green, summer 2026, hectares |
|---|
| green_raw_ha | urban green: summer 2026 minus summer 2024, hectares, without matched places |
|---|
| green_eff | urban green: the change in share minus the matched places’ mean change |
|---|
| green_eff_ha | urban green: that effect in hectares |
|---|
| green_verdict | urban green: up, down, noise or refused |
|---|
| trees_2024_ha | tree canopy, summer 2024, hectares |
|---|
| trees_2026_ha | tree canopy, summer 2026, hectares |
|---|
| trees_raw_ha | tree canopy: summer 2026 minus summer 2024, hectares, without matched places |
|---|
| trees_eff | tree canopy: the change in share minus the matched places’ mean change |
|---|
| trees_eff_ha | tree canopy: that effect in hectares |
|---|
| trees_verdict | tree canopy: up, down, noise or refused |
|---|
| built_2024_ha | built-up, summer 2024, hectares |
|---|
| built_2026_ha | built-up, summer 2026, hectares |
|---|
| built_raw_ha | built-up: summer 2026 minus summer 2024, hectares, without matched places |
|---|
| built_eff | built-up: the change in share minus the matched places’ mean change |
|---|
| built_eff_ha | built-up: that effect in hectares |
|---|
| built_verdict | built-up: up, down, noise or refused |
|---|
| gap | greenness in 2024, the sector minus its matched places (above 0.04 in absolute value: refused) |
|---|
| comparable | True when the matched places are comparable |
|---|