Most metropolitan areas face increasing problems connected to irregular urban expansion, loss of natural vegetation, decreasing of open space and general reduction of spatial extension. Towns have turned from small, isolated centres to big settlements. “Soil Sealing” is a phenomenon that is now recognized by the EEA as one of the eight main threats to the environment.

The importance of AI in monitoring land cover changes by means of EO data at various scales – continental, national and local – is crucial from at least two points of view because it reduced the photointerpretation loads and assures the objectivity of results.

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