EUDR

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May 12, 2025

EUDR DDS - Four Ways How to Decrease the GeoJSON File Size

Written by

Caroline Busse

MRV Carbon and Deforestation

The maximum 25 MB per due diligence satatement (DDS) allows for the declaration of approximately 1 million geolocation points or polygon vertices.

One DDS can therefore contain:

  • up to 1 million points (for farm plots smaller than 4 hectares)
  • a maximum of 250.000 polygons (if we assume rectangular polygons identified by only 4 points or vertices)
  • realistically one polygon contains at least 10-20 vertices, thus a DDS can contain a maximum of around 50.000 polygons

In case the DDS exceeds the size limit of 25 MB, there are multiple ways to decrease the GeoJSON file size:

1. Gather Precise Geolocation Data

Gather precise geolocation data of the production areas and limit the usage of ‘declaration in excess’ to a minimum.

2. Provide Points Instead of Polygons

Provide point data instead of polygons for plots smaller than four hectares.

The same plot can be mapped with only a single point to reduce the file size.

Note: this is only advised if the DDS exceeds 25 MB and if the plot can be approximated through a point. In general, polygons offer more accurate mapping than single points.

3. Decrease the Level of Detail

Reduce the level of detail of a polygon by only marking significant corner points instead of mapping a point every x meters.

The same polygon can be mapped with only 16 points (instead of 719). This reduces the size of the GeoJSON file by a factor of 30 (from 30 KB to <1KB).

4. Avoid Faulty Polygons

Avoid data quality issues that add unnecessary points to the polygon, such as spikes, self-intersections or slivers.

The polygon on the left contains multiple data quality issues such as slivers (overlaying sides of the polygon) and spikes that unnecessarily increase the number of points and the file size.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Caroline Busse

CEO

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Caroline is an experienced data scientist with a management degree from TU Munich and a degree in earth observation from the University of Würzburg, which is co-chaired by the German Aerospace Center (DLR). She has worked as a data scientist in the areas of nature conservation and land use change monitoring at WWF, the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), and at tech companies such as Celonis and Deloitte.

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