Dataset of land uses for the period 1961-2014 (Peyne watershed)

The study area corresponds to the Peyne watershed, which covers approximately 76 km2 and is located in Languedoc-Roussillon in southern France (43° 35′N, 3° 19′E). The smaller enclosed watershed is called the Bourdic subwatershed and covers 7 km2. The area of the Peyne watershed is mostly covered by perennial crops (mainly vineyards), and five towns are present in the zone. In 2012, the IGN released a large, open-access database of aerial black-and-white photographs from 1937 until the present. We selected a sample of images from the IGN database covering the Peyne watershed from 1962 to 2003 with a time interval between 4 and 5 years. We completed the series by taking orthophotos from 2005 to 2012 processed by the IGN from colour photographs. The aerial photographs were orthorectified using structure-from-motion approach and corrected from vignetting effects to get orthophotos defined at pixel resolution of less than 1 m. The satellite images were also sampled at the same resolution. The raster database was then transformed into polygons with a minimal area of approximately 200 m2 using manual digitizing and classification procedures to separate field entities and their associated land use categories using QGIS software. Land uses of each homogeneous polygon were classified according to the Corine Land Cover nomenclature expanded to the fourth level of detail for vineyards to distinguish goblet vines from trellised vines, with a special case noted for undefined vines when the difference in land management was difficult to detect. The distinction between goblet and trellised vineyards was based on the presence of a clear row orientation in the pictures.