Riparian zones represent transitional areas occurring between land and freshwater ecosystems, characterised by distinctive hydrology, soil and biotic conditions and strongly influenced by the stream water. They provide a wide range of riparian functions (e.g. chemical filtration, flood control, bank stabilization, aquatic life and riparian wildlife support, etc.) and ecosystem services. The Riparian Zones products will support the objectives of several European legal acts and policy initiatives, such as the EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2020, the Habitats and Birds Directives and the Water Framework Directive. Two complementary product groups provide detailed information on the state and characteristics of riparian zones across Belgium: 1. Land Cover / Land Use (LCLU) 2. Green Linear Elements (GLE)

The product is made of 5 "high resolution layers" covering all the Belgian territory as part of a European-wide coverage for the reference year 2015. The 5 layers concern 4 distinct themes: Imperviousness, Forest, Grasslands, Wetness and Water. The 5 layers were produced by an automatic classification based on satellite images and collateral data and achieved by private companies (EEA service providers), and they were verified by Belgium. At the Belgian level, verification and enhancements were made by IV for the northern part and SPW for the outhern part. The NGI coordinated the project. Data was produced with funding by the European Union. Copyright Copernicus Programme DISCLAIMER: National Geographic Institute has undertaken to distribute the data on behalf of EEA under Specific Contract No 3436/R0-Copernicus/EEA.57005 implementing Framework service contract No EEA/IDM/R0/16/009/Belgium. National Geographic Institute accepts no responsibility or liability whatsoever with regard to the content and use of these data.” The European Environment Agency accepts no responsibility or liability whatsoever with regard to the information on this site and the information does not necessarily reflect the official opinion of the EEA or other European Communities bodies and institutions.

This dataset contains historical orthophoto mosaics based on available aerial photographs covering parts of the Belgian territory. Orthophotos are aerial photographs that have been geometrically corrected (orthorectified) to eliminate distortions caused by terrain relief, lens distortion, and camera tilt. Unlike raw aerial imagery, orthophotos have a uniform scale and accurate geometry, making them suitable for cartography, measurements, and visual analysis. This specific dataset includes historical orthophotos from 1950, 1951, 1952 and 1954, derived from aerial surveys carried out by the National Geographic Institute (NGI). During this period, only analogue aerial photographs are available. The analogue images were scanned at high resolution and orthorectified. The resulting orthophotos were assembled into mosaics and georeferenced in the Lambert 2008 coordinate system. All orthophotos are panchromatic (black and white). The ground resolution (GSD) is 50 cm. The spatial coverage of this dataset is limited to the areas for which aerial photographs were available during the mentioned period. The data can be visualized via the corresponding web services (WMS/WMTS). The orthophotos and the original aerial photographs can be ordered in high resolution via https://shop.ngi.be/nl/luchtfotos/.

This dataset contains the orthophoto mosaics that were created following the floods of July 2021 in the valleys of the Vesdre, the Meuse and the Demer. Orthophotos are aerial photographs that have been geometrically corrected (orthorectified) to eliminate distortions caused by terrain relief, lens distortion, and camera tilt. Unlike raw aerial imagery, orthophotos have a uniform scale and accurate geometry, making them suitable for cartography, measurements, and visual analysis. This specific dataset includes orthophotos based on aerial photographs acquired in July 2021 by Hansa Luftbild, commissioned by the National Geographic Institute (NGI), following the floods in the zones of the Vesdre, a part of the Meuse downstream of Liège and the Demer. The resulting orthophoto mosaics are georeferenced in the Lambert 2008 coordinate system. All orthophotos are in colour (RGB). The ground resolution (GSD) is 6.5 cm (4 cm above the Hoëgne). The spatial coverage of this dataset is limited to the affected zones. The data can be visualized via the corresponding web service (WMS). The data is available on request via https://ngi.be/aanbod/kaarten-en-fotos/luchtfotos-orthofotos/.

The product is made of 6 "high resolution layers" covering all the Belgian territory as part of a European-wide coverage. The 6 layers concern 6 distinct themes: Imperviousness, Tree cover density, Forest type, Permanent grasslands, Wetlands and Permanent waterbodies. The 6 layers were produced by an automatic classification based on satellite images and collateral data and achieved by private companies (EEA service providers), and they were verified and enhanced by Belgium. At the Belgian level, verification and enhancements were made by AGIV for the northern part and SPW for the southern part. The NGI coordinated the project.

The European Urban Atlas provides reliable, inter-comparable, high-resolution land use and land cover data for 800 Functional Urban Area (FUA) for the 2012 reference year in EEA39 countries. This datasets contains the FUA for Belgium (Antwerpen, Brugge, Bruxelles_Brussel, Charleroi, Gent, Kortrijk, Leuven, Liege, Mons, Namur and Oostende).

The INSPIRE contour lines used for a cartographic representation of the relief at scale 1:50000, a product of the National Geographic Institute in Belgium. The dataset features are in accordance with the INSPIRE specifications.

This dataset contains the most recent national orthophoto mosaics covering the entire territory of Belgium. Orthophotos are aerial photographs that have been geometrically corrected (orthorectified) to eliminate distortions caused by terrain relief, lens distortion, and camera tilt. Unlike raw aerial imagery, orthophotos have a uniform scale and accurate geometry, making them suitable for cartography, measurements, and visual analysis. This specific dataset always contains the most recent operational orthophoto mosaics, derived from aerial surveys carried out by the Belgian administrative Regions. When the most recent acquisition campaign does not provide full coverage, the dataset is composed of the last one or two campaigns. In the current version of the dataset, the most recent national orthophoto coverage consists of a combination of the 2023 and 2024 campaigns, as the 2024 flight campaign does not provide full coverage of the territory. The national orthophoto coverage is renewed annually. The orthophoto datasets of the Regions are integrated by the National Geographic Institute (NGI) into a single national coverage. Where possible, radiometric corrections are applied to ensure smooth transitions between the data of the Regions. The resulting orthophoto mosaics are georeferenced in the Lambert 2008 coordinate system and tiled according to the MapIndex1 grid. All orthophotos are in colour (RGB). The ground resolution (GSD) is 25 cm in Wallonia and 12.5 cm in Flanders and the Brussels-Capital Region. The spatial coverage of this dataset is the entire Belgian territory. The data can be visualized via the corresponding web services (WMS/WMTS). The dataset is INSPIRE-compliant and can be downloaded as compressed JPEG2000 files (JP2) per MapIndex1 tile, with the corresponding world file (.j2w) and metadata describing the extent of the tiles.

This dataset contains the spatial metadata of the complete collection of aerial photos of the National Geographic Institute (NGI), from 1946 to today. The aerial photos themselves are not part of the dataset. The collection comprises more than 100,000 aerial photos. The images are predominantly panchromatic (black and white). From the late 1970s onwards, colour images were also taken, and from the end of 2004 onwards all images were taken in colour. The analogue aerial photos in the collection were scanned in high resolution. More recent aerial photos were captured directly in digital format. This specific dataset includes three layers: the centroids (centre points) of the individual aerial photos, the footprints (the outlines of the area on the ground covered by each photo), and the flight paths of the aircraft used during image acquisition. For each aerial photo, all known metadata is included in the attribute table, such as the acquisition date, the flight and the strip, the dimensions, the scale, the ground resolution, the radiometry (black and white or colour), the coordinates of the centre point, and the camera, lens and film used. This data makes it possible to find out which aerial photos are available for a given location and period, and what the characteristics of each photo are. The data can be consulted via the associated web service (WFS). The aerial photos can be ordered in high resolution via https://shop.ngi.be/nl/luchtfotos/.

The data set contains a seamless polygonal layer representing the land cover in Belgium for the year 2018. The dataset is INSPIRE compliant.