Working Party “Cooperation on Land Cover/Use Statistics” Point 4.4 of the agenda Land cover/use data in Eurostat database (Cronos) Working Party “Cooperation on Land Cover/Use Statistics” 7 – 8 June 2010

Contents Land cover data in Eurostat database (Cronos) Discrepancies with total area and land area Agricultural land: Farm Structure survey and Crop Statistics Proposals

Land use data in Cronos At the moment the land use appears as title in 6 different places in Cronos: Agriculture: Structure of agricultural holdings: Land Use Agriculture : Agricultural products: Crop products: Land use Regional statistics: Regional Agriculture Statistics: Land use Population and social conditions: Population: Demography: Regional data (2 different entries!) Environment and energy: Environment: Land use Forestry: Sustainable forset management: Assets: Land use

Data sources Agriculture: Structure of agricultural holdings: Land Use: Farm Structure Survey Agriculture : Agricultural products: Crop products: Land use: Crop Statistics Agriculture: Regional Agriculture Statistics: Land use: Regional data: No metadata in NC and different form other figures Environment and energy: Environment: Land use: Joint Questionnaire, last data from 2000… Forests: Joint Questionnaire 1995 Population data: 1) OECD and 2) NSIs 4

Comparison of figures for total area in 2007 Country Difference biggest - smallest (1000 ha) BE 0.0 LT BG LU CZ HU 0.5 DK MT DE 0.7 NL 417.4 EE 6.1 AT 0.9 IE 48.8 PL 0.6 GR PT 20.9 ES 62.2 RO FR 8374.7 SI IT 1.3 SK 0.1 CY FI 0.3 LV SE 892.6 UK 103.2

Comparison of figures for total land area in 2007 Country Difference smallest - biggest (1000 ha) Difference smallest - biggest (1000 ha) BE 5.0 LT 0.0 BG 239.4 LU CZ 1.7 HU 341.6 DK 69.9 MT DE NL EE 103.8 AT IE 50.0 PL GR 17.0 PT ES RO 8.1 FR 8528.1 SI 0.3 IT 99.1 SK 93.4 CY FI 0.4 LV 4.0 SE UK

Comparison of figures For more than 50 % of the countries the figures for total area or total land area are not the same in 2007 For 1997-2007 all countries have differences Although the differences are not huge, the figures should be harmonized

  FSS Differences for agricultural land: Utilized Agricultural area (1000 ha)

Differences for agricultural land: Arable land (1000 ha)

Differences for agricultural land: Permanent crops (1000 ha)

Comparison in figures For some countries the differences are relatively big Different statistical methods explain some differences (e.g. threshold size for FSS, double counting for the second yield etc.) But probably not all… The aim should be to harmonize the figures as much as possible within the limits set by different methodologies

Proposals We kindly ask the countries to confirm the correct figures for total area and total land area (yearly if changes) Eurostat can then harmonise the figures to analyse the sources for differences in FSS and crop statistics to make available to Eurostat the national land cover/use data for comparisons

Proposals Eurostat will harmonise the land cover/use data on Cronos as much as possible make sure that land cover/use data is published in the contexts where it makes sense make sure that the tables are named according to the type of data: e.g. Agricultural land use’, ‘Land use in farms’ in order to clarify the situation make sure that proper meta data is linked to all land cover/use tables with links to other relevant tables

Proposal (continues) Eurostat will put off-line the 2006 OECD/Eurostat land cover data as it is present only for 11 % of the countries make available the general land cover/use figures from LUCAS 2009 survey under ‘General and regional statistics’ with the heading ‘Overall land cover/use Land cover and land use Landscape

Thank you for your attention!