Spatial Multi-Criteria Analysis of Water-Covered Areas: District City of Katowice—Case Study

Abstract

The following databases contains information on land use with water in Poland: Corine Land Cover (CLC), the Urban Atlas (UA); Database of Topographic Objects (BDOT) the digital Map of Poland’s Hydrographic Division (MPHP); and the Register of Lands and Buildings (EGiB). All these data are referenced in scientific analyses and the Polish water management system, so the results of their processing should be the same (or at least similar); if not, output materials will be inconsistent and unreliable. In the Katowice sample, we checked the quality of this data using multi-criteria analyses, which is based on a grid of equal-area hexagons. Additionally, we applied the Normalized Difference Water Index to check real-time water presence. We detected discrepancies between all the data. The CLC does not reference any flowing water in Katowice. Most data overlapped between MPHP and BDOT, and both databases were similar to UA. However, a lot of uncertainty was also observed in the EGiB, which is considered to be the most accurate of the databases surveyed. In conclusion, we argue that water land cover data should be used with caution, and depending on the scales of analysis, that most actual data could be remote sensed data. We also include a diagram which can be useful in the data selection process.