Data on impervious soil coverage has been available for Berlin in the Environmental Atlas since the early 1980s; initially only for the western part of the city. After the political turnaround, a database was established for all of Berlin and continually revised as part of a series of updates focusing on different key areas respectively.
In cooperation with the Technical University of Berlin, the Humboldt University and the company Digitale Dienste Berlin, a new survey method for recording impervious areas was developed for the 2005 dataset. The method applied since then enables a comparison of the degrees of imperviousness across the whole city for the years 2005, 2011, 2016 and 2021.The following expert information, geo-data and satellite-image data, were used:
- Urban and Environmental Information System (ISU5) – spatial reference and land use data (as of December 31, 2020),
- Official Real Estate Cadastre Information System – ALKIS (as of February 2022),
- NOT-ALKIS buildings (as of 2021),
- Map of Berlin 1 : 5,000 – K5 (as of May 2021),
- Orthophotos from 2020 and 2021 (as of August 2020 and February 2021),
- Impervious soil coverage data of the BWB (Berlin Waterworks, as of 2001),
- Road survey data (as of 2014),
- Multispectral Sentinel-2A scene of June 7, 2021.
In addition to the ALKIS building dataset, a classification of the 2020 DSM was carried out, facilitating the development of a NOT-ALKIS building dataset (SenSW 2020a, SenSW 2021a). The buildings thus determined were used to supplement the building data basis for selected area types (single-family homes, row houses and duplexes, villas, allotment gardens, weekend cottages and rental-flat buildings of the 1990s and later). Road traffic data collected by surveying the entire public road space in Berlin (primary and secondary road network including some paths in public parks) was used for the first time in 2014 to develop a differentiated map of the impervious soil coverage of Berlin’s road space. The data contains information on 17 different materials, which was used to derive the degree of impervious coverage of the respective road surface (cf. SenUVK 2014).
Further information may be found in the final report of the impervious soil coverage mapping of 2021 (only in German).