Layer 1: Urban context
Goal: Provide data on the urban context for the city.
Approach: Seek data on the city’s placement in their region, through geodata, spatial boundaries, population numbers, economic activities at city level, policy documents, and land use. Since Layer 1 is on the overarching scale of the city, it is the same for the construction and biomass sectors.
The table shows the data needs for each of the sublayers, having a two or three digit level, e.g. “1.6. Land use” or “1.2.1 City population”. Most sublayers are mandatory to complete. Others are optional and useful for two cases:
- as proxies for downscaling or upscaling information when data is not available at a city/sector scale, or as a proxy to estimate data for a missing year.
- for the understanding of the city context, namely the descriptions of economic activities and policy documents
| Layer 1: Urban Context | mandatory (m), optional (o) |
|---|---|
| 1.1. Boundaries | m |
| 1.1.1. City boundaries | m |
| 1.1.2. NUTS3 boundaries | m |
| 1.1.3. NUTS2 boundaries | m |
| 1.1.4. Country boundaries | m |
| 1.2. Population | m |
| 1.2.1. City population | m |
| 1.2.2. NUTS3 population | m |
| 1.2.3. NUTS2 population | m |
| 1.2.4. Country population | m |
| 1.3. Economic activity - descriptions | o |
| 1.4. Economic activity - figures (employees and GDP per NACE codes) | m |
| 1.4.1. City employment per NACE codes (at least level 2) | m |
| 1.4.2. NUTS3 employment per NACE codes (at least level 2) | o |
| 1.4.3. NUTS2 employment per NACE codes (at least level 2) | o |
| 1.4.4. Country employment per NACE codes (at least level 2) | o |
| 1.4.5. City GDP or GVA per NACE codes (at least level 2) | m |
| 1.4.6. NUTS3 GDP or GVA per NACE codes (at least level 2) | o |
| 1.4.7. NUTS2 GDP or GVA per NACE codes (at least level 2) | o |
| 1.4.8. Country GDP or GVA per NACE codes (at least level 2) | o |
| 1.5. Policy documents | o |
| 1.6. Land use | m |
On the “Data contribution hub” of each city, each sublayer details the data needed and in some cases the appropriate file type is even preselected. For example:
- data on administrative boundaries: it states that shapefiles are required, because it helps to draw system boundaries.
- data on land use: shapefiles of land use are needed, but also data on soil type and composition, and mineral deposits.
Curious to see the inventory of other cities’ data items? Check out the data inventory of Layer 1 - Urban context