1. 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

2. Contents
Background information
Production process
Quality assurance

3. 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).

4. 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.

5. 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)

6. LUCAS 2009: the production process
Executive summary:
23 MS,
91% of EU area.
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

7. Organization of the work
12.6%
14%

8. Average points per surveyor by country

9. Average surveyed points per day by country

10. Average time per point by country in minutes
Driving time excluded

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

12. 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

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

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

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