Item 5.1 of the agenda Preliminary results of LUCAS 2009 Part I WORKING GROUP "Land Cover/Use Statistics" 7-8 June 2010,Luxembourg, LUCAS TEAM

Contents Background information Production process Quality assurance

Background information LUCAS area frame survey EU coverage land cover, land use data, landscape photographs + ad hoc parameters (soil in 2009) major strengths: harmonized and well-tested area frame sampling methodology differentiated nomenclature for land cover and land use Aim of LUCAS: to produce harmonised and comparables data on all dimensions of land cover and land use statistics at the European level, to monitor changes in land cover and land use and in European landscapes, to analyse soil quality to provide ground truth and calibration for many space-borne information collection activities (such as CLC and GMES).

Purpose of the presentation: some indicators of the quality performance of the field survey; the main features of the data processing process; some preliminary results of 2009 campaign.

Expected outcome The Member States are invited to discuss LUCAS potential role in the National Land Cover/ Use statistics (to what extent LUCAS data do overlap or fill holes in National Land Cover/ Use statistics)

LUCAS 2009: the production process Executive summary: 23 MS, 91% of EU area. 21.000 km2 (0.6 %) of EU23 total area not covered by the field survey. Survey conceived and designed by Eurostat. The Contractors were responsible: for data collection (23 countries arranged in 5 Lots) recruitment and management of surveyors data delivery. Campaign started in early April in Lithuania and Poland and was completed by end of October in Sweden. 500 surveyors were recruited for a total of 234,561 points

Organization of the work 12.6% 14%

Average points per surveyor by country

Average surveyed points per day by country

Average time per point by country in minutes Driving time excluded

Eu average time compared with min and max by land cover classes

Quality assurance Along all the survey Different actions: Standardization and computerization of the main phases of the data management; Continuous monitoring of the work; Various training steps; Different actors/level of controls including: an internal quality check (field work companies) External quality check (external company) Further check at ESTAT level

Quality indicators (non sampling) Measurement accuracy Observation type Field survey, point visible, distance 0-100 m Field survey, point visible, distance >100 m Photo-interpretation, point not visible Point not observed Distance to the point

Type of observation by country 79% <100 in total < 10% observ >100 14% of PI 96% 56% <100m

Eu average distance to the point compared with min and max by land cover classes Less then 32m distance