Land Cover in Europe
lessons learned from CORINE land cover
and new perspectives
European Environment Agency (EEA)
Markus Erhard
Why Land Cover Monitoring
• Multi-functionality of land – link to other sectors
 urban and landscape planning, water, soil,
biodiversity, climate change, air quality, natural
hazards etc.
• Monitoring, assessment and reporting
(continuous observation of environmental changes over
space and time)
 reporting obligations, indicators etc.
• Decision support, policy effectiveness
 need for action
Corine Land Cover (EEA-39)
http://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/COR0-landcover
• Voluntary contribution of
Member States since 1990
(no legal framework)
• Standardized, harmonized and
quality checked for Europe
• Minimum Mapping Unit 25 ha
• Change Detection 5 ha
• EEA / EIONET (Member States)
product (joint ownership)
• Free and open access
• Widely used (public & private)
• Stand alone product
Environmental
change
… and mapping
vs. technical progress
Hand
made
maps
CLC
1990
First GIS
GIS
electronic
mapping
CLC CLC
2000 2006
Web-based
Information
systems
CLC
2012 +
Land cover products
CLC 2006
Built-up area / sealing
CLC Changes
Land Ecosystem Account: Landscape Ecological Potential
Corine land cover map
(CLC is derived from
satellite images)
Green Landscape Index
(derived from CLC)

Nature Value (Naturilis,
derived from Natura2000
designated areas)
and
Landscape Ecological
Potential (LEP) 2000, by 1km²
grid cell
LEP 2000 by NUTS 2/3
Fragmentation (Effective
Mesh Size (MEFF) derived
from TeleAtlas Roads and
CLC)
From changes to flows
Change Matrix
(44x43=1932
possible changes)
summarized into
flows
LCF1
LCF2
LCF3
Corine land cover types
1
2000
2006
Land cover flows
LCF1 Urban land management
LCF2 Urban residential sprawl
LCF3 Sprawl of economic sites and LCF8
infrastructures
LCF5
LCF4 Agriculture internal conversions
LCF5 Conversion from other land cover to agriculture
LCF6
LCF4
LCF6 Withdrawal
of farming
LCF7 Forests creation and management
LCF8 Water bodies creation and management
LCF9 LCF7
Changes due to natural & multiple causes
Total Consumption of 1990 land cover, km²
No Change
LCF9 km²
Total land cover 1990,
LCF1 Urban land management
LCF2 Urban residential sprawl
LCF3 Sprawl of economic sites and infrastructures
16
16
Country Analyses (1) (e.g. Bulgaria)
http://www.eea.europa.eu/themes/landuse
• Change of main land-cover classes 2000 - 2006
1.1. Land Cover 2006
[% of total]
Wetl.
3.8. A rtif icial land
1%
take [ha/year,
% of initial year]
5%
4%
800
38%
0.13%
1%
0 ,1 %
37%
14%
1.2. Net Change in Land
0.06%
400
1.3. Net Change in Land Cover
Cover 2000-2006 [km2]
[% of initial year 2000]
1 ,5
40
0
0 ,5
10
- 0 ,5
-2 0
- 1 ,5
1990-2000 2000-2006
Country Analyses (2) (e.g. Bulgaria)
http://www.eea.europa.eu/themes/landuse
Regional and thematic analysis
(e.g. wetlands)
Going global  GlobCorine 2009
• Environmental accounting  UNSD SEEA revision 2012/2013,
green GDP etc.
• from GlobCover to GlobCorine: ESA & EEA, GEO-GEOSS
Source: ESA, 2008
CLC for integrated assessments
Spatial Integration of Environmental & Socio-Economic Data
Mapping
SocioSocio-economic
Economic
statistics
Statistics
Sampling
Individual Sites
Monitoring
Statistical Data and Corine
e.g. down-scaling population density
http://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/figures/population-density-1
Dissemination and user support
Land use data centre
• http://www.eea.europa.eu/themes/landuse
Towards operational land cover
monitoring (GIO Land 2011-2013)
Services
In Situ
Systems
GMES
Space
Systems
Data Integration &
Information Management
Photo: ESA
GIO Land Services
3 components:
1. Local : zooming on ‘hot
spot’ (e.g. urban atlas,
protected areas, coastal
areas)
2. Continental: pan-European
products (Corine 2012, 5
HRLs soil sealing, forest,
agriculture, wetland, water)
3. Global: bio-physical
parameters (Essential
Climate Variables (ECVs),
food security (Africa) etc.)
Local component – Urban Atlas
EU component - CLC
Global component – ECV*s
Continental Component (1)
CORINE  CORINE  CORINE ...
• Corine 2006 update and 2012 map
based on Image 2012 (-1) and CLC2006
• Re-analysis 2012-2006-2000
1990 
…
2000


2006
 2012  20xx
…
Continental Component (2)
+ 5 High Resolution Layers (HRLs)
 20 x 20 m resolution for validated 100 x 100m (1 ha)
grid cells
1. artificial surfaces: imperviousness layer (0-100%)
(former soil sealing)
2. forest areas: foliage type (coniferous, deciduous,
mixed) and crown coverage (0-100%)
3. agricultural areas: mapping of permanent grassland
4. wetlands: mapping of wetness
5. water surfaces: small water bodies complementary to
WFD and reference data
Local analysis
(e.g. soil sealing / imperviousness 2006)
20m * 20m
Soil Imperviousness 2006 - 2009
Berlin
Berlin 2009
2006
Courtesy: Geoland-2
Next steps
 Improve product (HRLs as first step)
 Improve production process (share between
industry and Member States) and cost benefit
 Improve production time (from ~ 3 to 1 year) for
more frequent updating
 Adapt to user requirements
 Make use of national data and monitoring
 Make use of public participation (citizen science /
Eye on Earth)
 Embed in INSPIRE, SEIS and national activities
Appropriate handling
 CLC as pan-European harmonized product (EEA39)
 Information homogenous and comparable across
Europe
 Due to its granularity CLC tends to underestimate
trends (scaling issue)
 Changes << 5ha are in some cases not visible (e.g.
land take by holiday houses in Norway)
 Need for re-analysis (better data vs. change
detection)
 Appropriate use of information not “right or wrong”
Conclusions
QA/QC and standardised production implemented
Methods for analyses and assessments exist
Operational updating (GMES) with higher frequency
Dissemination and user involvement (web services
and GMES)
 Free and open access to data, tools and products
 Production enhancement (faster, cheaper, better 
integrating national activities)
 Product enhancement (content, timeliness)




 keep it running
Thank you very much for your attention!
http://www.eea.europa.eu
markus.erhard@eea.europa.eu