The published land use data were part of the project “What is Sustainable Intensification? Operationalizing Sustainable Agricultural Pathways in Europe (SIPATH)”, which was funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (grant no. CRSII5_183493). The overall objective of this project was to assess short-term trajectories in agriculture land use and landscape structure over a period of 20 years for 16 individual study sites located in 11 countries, ranging from the Mediterranean to the boreal zone. The following datasets illustrate land use data that were generated for the different study sites at two points in time between 2000 and 2020, depending on data availability. The data collection process encompassed land use mapping through visual image interpretation of orthorectified aerial photographs using geographic information systems (ESRI ArcGIS Pro). Land use digitalization was conducted by two scientists in Switzerland, who were in contact with the respective project partners in the study countries to exchange expert knowledge. Minimal mapping unit was 25m2 for areal elements. Land cover was classified following the European Nature Information System (EUNIS) habitat classification (EEA 2019). The broadest habitat classes were systematically mapped in the study sites, with each covering an area of approximately 25 km². While EUNIS focuses on habitat types, the study, however, targeted the intensity of agricultural land-use, several EUNIS classes were complemented with levels of land-use intensities. This was applied for grassland, olive groves and fruit orchards. The spatial resolution of the orthophotos ranged from 25cm to 2m. Accordingly, there were situations in which the spatial resolution was insufficient to accurately determine the land use. In such cases, either orthophotos from about the same year were consulted, possibly showing different phenological stages, or land use statistics and expert judgement based on local expert knowledge of the respective study area were applied.
