SWECO25: a cross-thematic raster database for ecological research in Switzerland

Nathan Külling; Antoine Adde; Fabian Fopp; Anna K Schweiger; Olivier Broennimann; Pierre-Louis Rey; Gregory Giuliani; Teresa Goicolea; Blaise Petitpierre; Niklaus E Zimmermann; Loïc Pellissier; Florian Altermatt; Anthony Lehmann; Antoine Guisan

doi:10.1038/s41597-023-02899-1

SWECO25: a cross-thematic raster database for ecological research in Switzerland

Sci Data. 2024 Jan 3;11(1):21. doi: 10.1038/s41597-023-02899-1.

Authors

Nathan Külling^#¹, Antoine Adde^#², Fabian Fopp^{3

4}, Anna K Schweiger^{5

6}, Olivier Broennimann^{7

8}, Pierre-Louis Rey⁷, Gregory Giuliani^{9

10}, Teresa Goicolea⁷, Blaise Petitpierre¹¹, Niklaus E Zimmermann³, Loïc Pellissier^{3

4}, Florian Altermatt^{12

13}, Anthony Lehmann¹⁴, Antoine Guisan^{15

16}

Affiliations

¹ EnviroSPACE, Institute for Environmental Sciences, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland. nathan.kuelling@unige.ch.
² Institute of Earth Surface Dynamics, Faculty of Geosciences and Environment, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland. antoine.adde@unil.ch.
³ Land Change Science Research Unit, Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research, WSL, Birmensdorf, Switzerland.
⁴ Ecosystems Landscape Evolution, Institute for Terrestrial Ecosystems, Department of Environmental System Sciences, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
⁵ Department of Geography, Remote Sensing Laboratories, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
⁶ Department of Land Resources & Environmental Sciences, Montana State University, P.O. Box 173120, Bozeman, MT, 597171, USA.
⁷ Institute of Earth Surface Dynamics, Faculty of Geosciences and Environment, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland.
⁸ Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland.
⁹ EnviroSPACE, Institute for Environmental Sciences, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland.
¹⁰ GRID-Geneva, Institute for Environmental Sciences, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland.
¹¹ InfoFlora, c/o Conservatoire et Jardin botaniques de Genève, Chambésy-Genève, Switzerland.
¹² Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, University of Zurich, Zürich, Switzerland.
¹³ Department of Aquatic Ecology, Eawag: Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, Dübendorf, Switzerland.
¹⁴ EnviroSPACE, Institute for Environmental Sciences, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland. anthony.lehmann@unige.ch.
¹⁵ Institute of Earth Surface Dynamics, Faculty of Geosciences and Environment, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland. antoine.guisan@unil.ch.
¹⁶ Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland. antoine.guisan@unil.ch.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Standard and easily accessible cross-thematic spatial databases are key resources in ecological research. In Switzerland, as in many other countries, available data are scattered across computer servers of research institutions and are rarely provided in standard formats (e.g., different extents or projections systems, inconsistent naming conventions). Consequently, their joint use can require heavy data management and geomatic operations. Here, we introduce SWECO25, a Swiss-wide raster database at 25-meter resolution gathering 5,265 layers. The 10 environmental categories included in SWECO25 are: geologic, topographic, bioclimatic, hydrologic, edaphic, land use and cover, population, transportation, vegetation, and remote sensing. SWECO25 layers were standardized to a common grid sharing the same resolution, extent, and geographic coordinate system. SWECO25 includes the standardized source data and newly calculated layers, such as those obtained by computing focal or distance statistics. SWECO25 layers were validated by a data integrity check, and we verified that the standardization procedure had a negligible effect on the output values. SWECO25 is available on Zenodo and is intended to be updated and extended regularly.

Publication types

Dataset