Comparability

Comparability - geographical

The land accounts have been designed to be internationally compatible, by following the guidelines in System of Environmental-Economic Accounting - the UN statistical standard. The accounts are not fully comparable with Eurostat (LUCAS) data on Danish land cover, as these are based on different sources and methodology.

Comparability over time

The land cover accounts for 2011, 2016, 2018 and 2021 are fully compatible. The 2011, 2016 and 2018 maps have been constructed with compatibility in mind, using methods to clear out changes caused purely by technical reasons. The methods for this are documented in the technical report.

Coherence - cross domain

There are important differences between the land cover accounts and the land covered with forest as measured in the National Forest Inventory. These differences are discussed and described in quantitative terms in the technical report on BASEMAP04, in the section on tree cover.

The industry groups are the same as in the National Accounts, making it possible to compare land use to e.g. production or employment using National Accounts data.

Coherence - internal

Full internal consistency within, respectively, the data set for land cover and the data set for land use. This is a defining characteristic of the land accounts for land cover, that all the source maps have been consolidated to construct one single map, where all land is assigned to exactly one category of land cover.

The two data sets (land cover and land use) are not fully consistent with each other, as they are created from different sources and with different methods. Read more under 'accuracy and reliability'.