1. 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

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

3. 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

4. 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

5. 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

6. 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

7. 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 all countries have differences
Although the differences are not huge, the figures should be harmonized

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

9. Differences for agricultural land: Arable land (1000 ha)

10. Differences for agricultural land: Permanent crops (1000 ha)

11. 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

12. 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

13. 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

14. 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

15. Thank you for your attention!