•The custodian of the resource holds the rights of property (including the rights of intellectual property) to the geographic files

•The custodian grants the user the right to use the data for his internal use.

•Commercial use of the data under any form is strictly forbidden

•Custodian’s name must be mentioned each time the data are being used publically.

•The custodian of the resource holds the rights of property (including the rights of intellectual property) to the geographic files

•The custodian grants the user the right to use the data for his internal use.

•Commercial use of the data under any form is strictly forbidden

•Custodian’s name must be mentioned each time the data are being used publically.

The land use and land cover data used by IWEPS for Wallonia are taken from the Belgian Cadastre (SPF Finance). A cadastral parcel includes the buildings, annexes, outbuildings, accesses and gardens that are contiguous to it, provided that the whole forms an indivisible whole and is assigned to the same use (SPF Finance, 2014). For each cadastral parcel, the surface area and the cadastral nature are available. The latter corresponds to the main use of the parcel at the time of its last cadastral registration (e.g. house, farm, business, etc.).

In 2008, a land use nomenclature was developed on the basis of a joint reflection by the standing conference on territorial development, the SPW Environment and the IWEPS. The cadastral natures were grouped into 16 land use categories. These 16 categories can be grouped together to distinguish between artificial and non-artificial land. This grouping of parcels is based on the work of the European CORINE Land Cover (CLC) project in order to facilitate comparisons with other European regions. The land registry data are not exhaustive. In 2021, 5.2% of Wallonia's territory is not registered and/or of unknown nature. The unregistered areas are part of the public space (roads, squares, railways, rivers and canals, etc.). These areas of unknown nature are not homogeneously distributed over the Walloon territory. The proportion of unknown areas varies from 2% (larger or rural municipalities) to over 20% (Liège and Visé). The Sambre-et-Meuse region accounts for a large proportion of this area.