| name | eea-sdi |
| description | European Environment Agency geospatial catalogue (sdi.eea.europa.eu) — search ~10k datasets: CORINE, HRL, Natura 2000; WMS/WFS link discovery. |
EEA SDI — European Environment Agency geospatial catalogue
European Environment Agency's geospatial-data Spatial Data Infrastructure
(SDI). Front-end at https://sdi.eea.europa.eu/catalogue/. The catalogue
is run on GeoNetwork 4.4 and surfaces ~10 000 datasets covering land
cover, biodiversity, climate, water, soil, air-quality, marine, energy
and transport for the EEA38 (Europe + EFTA + Western Balkans).
Most records are produced by the Copernicus Land Monitoring Service
(CLMS) and are mirrored on EEA's discomap ArcGIS server at
https://image.discomap.eea.europa.eu/. Since LMI's gis.lmi.is only
republishes the Iceland clip of a small subset of CLMS layers, going to
the EEA SDI directly opens up many more datasets (CORINE, HRL series,
Natura 2000, Imperviousness change, Tree Cover Change, Water & Wetness
Probability, Small Woody Features, etc.).
API surface
| Endpoint | Purpose | Format |
|---|
/catalogue/srv/api/site | Service info / version | JSON |
/catalogue/srv/api/search/records/_search | Elasticsearch search (rich) | JSON |
/catalogue/srv/eng/csw | OGC CSW 2.0.2 GetRecords / GetCapabilities | XML |
/catalogue/srv/api/records/{uuid}/formatters/xml | Full ISO 19115 XML for one record | XML |
/catalogue/srv/api/records/{uuid}/formatters/xsl-view | Rendered HTML view | XML/HTML |
/public/catalogue-graphic-overview/{uuid}.png | Catalogue thumbnail | PNG |
/catalogue/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/{uuid} | Human metadata page | HTML |
Tip: the obvious-looking GET /catalogue/srv/api/records/{uuid} returns 404 on this catalogue.
Use formatters/xml for ISO XML or the _search endpoint with {"term":{"uuid":"..."}} for the
JSON view.
No authentication is required for any of these. (Some datasets'
WWW:DOWNLOAD links point to https://land.copernicus.eu/ which does
require a free Copernicus Land account — see "Download protocols" below.)
Search via the Elasticsearch endpoint
The richest surface. POST a JSON body in standard ES query DSL.
curl -sS "https://sdi.eea.europa.eu/catalogue/srv/api/search/records/_search?from=0&size=10" \
-H "Accept: application/json" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"query":{"bool":{
"must":[{"match":{"resourceTitleObject.langeng":"grassland"}}],
"filter":[{"geo_shape":{"geom":{
"shape":{"type":"envelope","coordinates":[[-25,67],[-13,63]]},
"relation":"intersects"
}}}]
}},
"_source":["uuid","resourceTitleObject.default","link","publicationYearForResource"]
}' | jq '.hits.hits[]._source.resourceTitleObject.default'
coordinates for envelope are [[west,north],[east,south]] (top-left
then bottom-right) in WGS84.
Useful _source fields
| Field | Meaning |
|---|
uuid / metadataIdentifier | Stable record id |
resourceTitleObject.{default,langeng} | Title (multilingual) |
resourceAbstractObject.{default,langeng} | Abstract |
cl_resourceScope[].key | dataset, series, service, nonGeographicDataset, … |
cl_topic[].key | INSPIRE topic — environment, farming, imageryBaseMapsEarthCover, … |
inspireTheme[] | INSPIRE Annex theme codes |
OrgForResourceObject.langeng | Producing organisation |
publicationYearForResource | Year the data was published |
geom | GeoJSON polygon of the spatial footprint |
link[] | List of {protocol, urlObject, nameObject, descriptionObject} items |
recordLink_children_uuid[] | UUIDs of child datasets (for series records) |
agg_associated[] | Related-dataset UUIDs |
Iceland-only filter
Iceland sits between roughly (-25, -13) longitude and (63, 67) latitude.
Use the geo_shape filter shown above. Many EEA datasets are EEA38 in
scope so they intersect Iceland even when the filename doesn't say so.
CSW (OGC Catalog Service for the Web)
Returns a Dublin-Core summary with <dc:URI> link tags. Useful when you
want a quick scan and don't need every metadata field.
curl -sS -G "https://sdi.eea.europa.eu/catalogue/srv/eng/csw" \
--data-urlencode "service=CSW" \
--data-urlencode "version=2.0.2" \
--data-urlencode "request=GetRecords" \
--data-urlencode "typeNames=csw:Record" \
--data-urlencode "resultType=results" \
--data-urlencode "outputSchema=http://www.opengis.net/cat/csw/2.0.2" \
--data-urlencode "elementSetName=full" \
--data-urlencode "constraintLanguage=CQL_TEXT" \
--data-urlencode "constraint_language_version=1.1.0" \
--data-urlencode "constraint=AnyText like '%grassland%'" \
--data-urlencode "maxRecords=20"
The numberOfRecordsMatched attribute in the response tells you the
total; pass startPosition=N to page.
Following download links
Each record's link[] array carries one entry per access mechanism.
The protocol field tells you what to do with the URL.
| Protocol | Meaning | Auth? |
|---|
OGC:WMS | WMS GetCapabilities URL — visualise as tiles | No |
OGC:WFS | WFS GetCapabilities URL — vector download | No |
OGC:WCS | WCS GetCapabilities URL — raster download | No |
ESRI:REST | ArcGIS REST endpoint (Image-/Map-/FeatureServer) | No |
WWW:DOWNLOAD / WWW:DOWNLOAD-1.0-http--download | Direct download | usually yes (Copernicus) |
WWW:LINK / WWW:LINK-1.0-http--link | Generic web link / docs | No |
WWW:URL | Generic web link | No |
DOI | DOI URL for citation | No |
image/png | Catalogue thumbnail / preview | No |
For no-auth programmatic access prefer OGC or ESRI:REST links;
they almost always go to image.discomap.eea.europa.eu or to a JRC /
EUMETSAT GeoServer that does not require credentials. For bulk
downloads (full GeoTIFF tiles) the WWW:DOWNLOAD link points to
land.copernicus.eu which needs a free CLMS account.
Helpful Iceland-relevant datasets
(Not exhaustive — use search to discover more.)
| UUID | What | Resolution | Year |
|---|
35a036bb-c027-401c-8625-2ecf722e8461 | HRL Grassland mask, Europe | 20 m | 2015 |
5ebf3d6e-b148-4d22-b5e5-173a9d8fd661 | HRL Grassland mask, Europe | 100 m | 2018 |
0b6254bb-4c7d-41d9-8eae-c43b05ab2965 | HRL Grassland (annual), Europe | 10 m | 2017– |
a0925bc0-d3d8-49af-ba9d-c4f1cf2b654d | HRL Grassland Change | 20 m | 2015–2018 |
82d8f687-3ef1-4b84-89ef-5a1e646137f8 | HRL Grasslands (series) | — | — |
For Iceland-only clipped versions of HRL Grassland / Tree Cover /
Imperviousness / Water-and-Wetness / Dominant-Leaf-Type, see the
lmi_hrl skill — those are the same data on gis.lmi.is.
Script
uv run python scripts/eea_sdi.py search grassland --iceland
uv run python scripts/eea_sdi.py search "tree cover density"
uv run python scripts/eea_sdi.py record 35a036bb-c027-401c-8625-2ecf722e8461
uv run python scripts/eea_sdi.py links 35a036bb-c027-401c-8625-2ecf722e8461
uv run python scripts/eea_sdi.py xml 35a036bb-c027-401c-8625-2ecf722e8461 \
-o data/raw/eea_sdi/grassland_2015.xml
Caveats
/srv/api/records/{uuid} returns 404 — use the _search endpoint with a term filter on uuid, or formatters/xml.- Search hits are paginated — default page size 10, hard cap 1 000 per page (
size parameter). Loop with from to enumerate.
- Series records have empty
link[] — you must follow recordLink_children_uuid[] to the child dataset records to find the actual download URLs.
- The bbox
coordinates for geo_shape/envelope are [[w,n],[e,s]] (top-left, bottom-right) — the opposite of the usual GIS minx/miny/maxx/maxy ordering. Easy to invert.
WWW:DOWNLOAD to land.copernicus.eu requires registration — for unauthenticated bulk pulls use image.discomap.eea.europa.eu ArcGIS REST/WMS instead.- discomap WMS GetMap caps requests at ~10 M output pixels — even though the GetCapabilities advertises
MaxWidth=4096 and MaxHeight=4096, requesting both at once returns HTTP 400. The largest aspect-correct frame is around 3500×2666.
- discomap WMS returns styled RGB images, not raw raster values. For raw probability / index pixel values, decode the legend swatch RGB → bin midpoint (see
scripts/grassland_probability_heatmap.py for an example) or use the matching WCS endpoint when available.
- discomap MapServer
exportImage with pixelType=U8 still returns RGBA PNGs for MapServers (vs. ImageServers, where raw values do come through). Single-band raw pulls work only when the metadata link is ESRI:REST → ImageServer.
- Encoding — all strings are UTF-8 in the JSON/XML responses. Icelandic characters (þ, ð, æ, ö) survive intact.
- Native CRS varies per layer — Pan-European HRL products are EPSG:5325 (LAEA Iceland) or EPSG:3035 (LAEA Europe); WMS endpoints additionally publish EPSG:3857, 4326. Reproject for area-correct stats.
