World Settlement Footprint (WSF) Tracker - Global, 2016-2026

The WSF Tracker is a global dataset designed to outline how built-up areas evolve over time. Developed through collaboration between the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and MindEarth, with support from a dedicated initiative of the European Space Agency's (ESA) Global Development Assistance (GDA) programme, the WSF Tracker captures settlement changes worldwide every six months at 10 m resolution since July 2016. Until now, global settlement maps have largely functioned as static snapshots, capturing where built-up areas existed at a given moment but offering limited visibility into how they evolved over time. The WSF Tracker changes this by creating a continuously updated global record of settlement dynamics.By analysing satellite observations from the European Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 missions and combining it with auxilary data likes dems and roand networks the dataset provides a spatially detailed and frequently updated picture of built-up area development at a scale that has so far been largely unavailable globally.
Suggested Data Citation
German Aerospace Center (DLR) (2026): World Settlement Footprint (WSF) - Global, 2016-2026. https://doi.org/10.15489/3fa4d2j0tk78
Coverage
Geographic Boundaries
North:	78.00°
West:	-180.00°
East:	180.00°
South:	-60.00°
Time Period
Start date:	2016-06-01
End date:	2026-01-01
More Information
Keywords:	DLR, EOC, Sentinel-1/2, Copernicus, ESA, urbanization, urban growth, global settlements, GDA, opendata
Contact:	wsf@dlr.de
Access / Use Restriction:	License
Data Use Guidelines	Creative Commons BY 4.0
Links
Mission / Project Information
DOI (of Dataset)	https://doi.org/10.15489/3fa4d2j0tk78 Digital Object Identifier
EOC Geoservice Dataset Landing Page	https://geoservice.dlr.de/web/datasets/wsf_tracker Dataset Landing Page
Downloading Data
HTTP Download (WSF Tracker)	https://download.geoservice.dlr.de/WSFTRACKER/files/ HTTP Download