Topology software system: Support to the creation of land use maps

The ESA Support to Topology (STO) project addresses the problem of extracting land use maps from land cover maps, by means of topological relations among the different land cover objects. To this aim, the definition and the creation of so-called complex objects, intended as “land use elements (urban fabric, industrial units, ...) formed by more basic objects in defined shape and more importantly spatial structure” is achieved making use of topological operators (and their combinations), either existing or specifically implemented for the study. A prototype web-gis system, named Topology Software System (TSS), is implemented to allow users to define combinations of operators, in order to identify specific land use features. The developed approach and implemented TSS tool have been validated through four use cases, run by specialized end-users, in order to verify that the expected operations can be performed, and that these operations are sufficient to create land use maps from land cover maps. Work performed in the STO project is here presented as well as preliminary results achieved running the use cases.