1. WORKING GROUP "Land Cover/Use Statistics" 20 October 2009, Luxembourg
Point 4.3 of the agenda Way forward on harmonizing existing land cover/use data systems
WORKING GROUP "Land Cover/Use Statistics" 20 October 2009, Luxembourg
LUCAS TEAM 1

2. Problem statement
Land cover/use data is very important from EU perspective (i.e. nature protection, water management, urban and transport planning, forest management, agricultural policy, land cadastres, natural hazards prevention and mitigation, soil protection and mapping, monitoring climate change) and linked to many official reporting obligations
Land cover/use data are linked to many EU initiatives, such as INSPIRE (Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community), SEIS (Shared Environmental Information System) and GMES (Global Monitoring for Environment and Security).

3. Main quality requirements
Comparability
Data has to be comparable over time (allow time-series): methodology, nomenclature and definitions have to be coherent over the time and in the various countries
Relevance in terms of geographical coverage and representativeness
Land cover/use statistics have to cover all EU countries. In addition, the administrative level has to be small enough (e.g. NUTS level depending on the country).
Coherence within and between countries
internal coherence within the Member States territory has to be guaranteed. Under/over-representation of any land cover/use classes should be avoided. Land cover/use statistics should also be coherent with data from other EU level statistical sources (e.g. utilized agricultural area, forestry areas, etc.)

4. Data sources of LC/LU in EU
Annual crop statistics (Reg. 543/2009 of 18/6/2009)
Limited to agricultural use and biased toward agriculture
Other datasets on specific land cover/use classes (mainly agriculture and forestry)
lack of standardisation among countries, lack of coherence within the total area of a single country and the incomplete coverage at the EU level.
OECD/Eurostat Joint Questionnaire (until 2006)
Response rate was only 11 % in Member States sent no data at all; most of the others did not send all required details.

5. CORINE LAND COVER and LUCAS
Strengths
harmonized and well-tested methodology Standardized among countries
Separate nomenclature for land cover and land use
Reliability at NUTS2 level
Platform for ad-hoc studies
Strengths
Overall image of major land cover classes in Europe
Standardized among countries
Good reliability (in total between 75%-87%)
Weaknesses
Relatively coarse scale
Mixed nomenclature LC/LU
Underestimation small scale features
Weaknesses
Small scale features estimated with poor precision
Problems in reaching remote areas

6. Member States LUCAS Other EU DGs and Inst
EUROSTAT strategy to improve availability and quality of LC/LU statistics
Integrated system for land cover/use statistics
Core land cover/use statistics
LUCAS
Member States
Strong co-operation needed
Other EU DGs and Inst
Continuation of cooperation
In situ
Module
In situ
Module
Multi purpose platform
for in-situ data

7. potential cooperation on land cover/use statistics harmonization;
Discussion
Member States are asked to express their opinion about:
potential cooperation on land cover/use statistics harmonization;
participation to the new-LUCAS Advisory Board