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Land Cover and Land Use Information Systems for European Union Policy Needs Ι J Ζ t -- *aJ ο Q UJ Land cover and land use information systems for European Union policy needs ι J griculture and fisheries \^^^^pi' 2 Ο Q ui Land cover and land use information systems for European Union policy needs E5 ijriculture EUROPEAN nd COMMISSION fisheries eurostat STATISTICAL OFFICE OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES L-2920 Luxembourg — Tél. 4301-1 — Télex COMEUR LU 3423 B-1049 Bruxelles, rue de la Loi 200 —Tél. 299 11 11 A great deal of additional information on the European Union is available on the Internet. It can be accessed through the Europa server (http://europa.eu.int). Cataloguing data can be found at the end of this publication. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, 1999 ISBN 92-828-7450-8 © European Communities, 1999 Printed in Luxembourg PRINTED ON WHITE CHLORINE-FREE PAPER LAND COVER AND LAND USE INFORMATION SYSTEMS FOR EUROPEAN UNION POLICY NEEDS Proceedings of the seminar Luxembourg, 21 - 23 January 1998 Seminar organised by: Eurostat, Statistical Office of the European Communities, Luxembourg General Direction IX, Staff and Administration, Brussels Proceedings prepared by: CESD-Communautaire, Land Use Programme, Luxembourg Land cover and land use information systems for the European Union policy needs Luxembourg, 21-23 January 1998 TABLE OF CONTENTS OPENING Y. FRANCHET, Director-General, Eurostat, Luxembourg 9 J. VIGNON, Representative of the European Commission Brussels- Belgium 11 A. BODRY, Minister for Regional Planning Grand Duchy of Luxembourg 15 SESSION 1 : INFORMATION REQUIREMENTS OF THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION Synthesis of the requirements D.W HEATH, Eurostat, Luxembourg 19 Fulfilment level of information requirement R. MUTHMANN, Eurostat, Luxembourg 25 The need for information on land use for the requirements of the common agricultural policy M. GAVIRA MONTIEL, European Commission, DG VI, Unit A2, Brussels - Belgium 29 SESSION 2: SOME ANSWERS FROM EUROPEAN NETWORKS State of Play of the EEA European Topic Centre on Land Cover C. STEENMANS, European Environment Agency (EEA), Copenhagen - Denmark R. BERGSTRÖM, Environmental Satellite Data Centre (MDC), Kiruna - Sweden 37 Land Use / Cover change X. BAULIES, I. AUGE, Cartographic Institute of Catalan, Barcelona - Spain 45 The CLAUDE Project M. PARRY, D. MORTIMER, Jackson Environment Institute, University College London- United Kingdom 55 Land cover and land use information systems for the European Union policy needs Luxembourg, 21-23 January 1998 The LANES network C. DUHAMEL, W. CROI, CESD Communautaire, Land Use programme, Luxembourg 61 Eurostat working party on Land Use statistics M. KAPLAS, M. POIRET and B. SIMONSEN, Eurostat, Luxembourg 65 SESSION 3: A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF THE DOMAIN Objectives, tools, nomenclatures C. DUHAMEL, CESD Communautaire, Luxembourg C.VIDAL, Eurostat, Luxembourg 73 The problem of scale J. L. WEBER, Institut Français de l'Environnement, and the Topic Centre « Land Cover » of the European Environment Agency (EEA), Orléans - France 79 The problem of observation units J. DELINCÉ, O. DECOCQ, European Commission, DG VI-A.I4, Brussels, Belgium S. KAY, European Commission, Joint Research Center, Ispra - Italy 87 The problems of current land cover classifications: development of a new approach L. J.M. JANSEN, FAO - Land and Water Development Division, Rome - Italy A. DI GREGORIO, GCP/RAF/287/ITA Africover - East Africa Project, Nairobi 93 SESSION 4: IMPROVING COORDINATION OF TECHNICAL APPROACHES The implementation of one system: the case of SIAGRO A. DELGADO, J.M. MIRANDA, National Statistical Institute, Lisbon - Portugal 105 Thematic maps and statistics E. CARFAGNA, University of Bologna - Department of Statistics, Bologna - Italy F. J GALLEGO, Joint Research Centre - Space Applications Institute, Ispra - Italy 111 Data Integration: Corine LAND COVER in Finland, an example Y. SUCKSDORFF, R. TEINIRANTA and K. VALANNE, Finnish Environment Institute O. JAAKKOLA, Finnish Geodetic Institute, A. MIKKOLA, National Land Survey of Finland .... 123 Land cover and land use information systems for the European Union policy needs Luxembourg, 21-23 January 1998 SESSION 5: UPDATE AND USE OF THE SYSTEMS Area statistics in Switzerland: the follow-up survey A.BEYELER, Swiss Federal Statistical Office, Bern - Switzerland 135 GISCO: The Commission's geographical information system D. RASE, Eurostat, Luxembourg 145 Multiple applications of a survey of land cover/use : the TER-UTI example M. F. SLAK, ENITA, Bordeaux - France 159 Systems for measuring changes G.W. FISCHER, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg - Austria .... 169 SESSION 6: PROPOSALS FOR A FRAMEWORK FOR FUTURE WORK Synthesis of the conclusions D.W. HEATH, R. MUTHMANN, C. VIDAL, Eurostat, Luxembourg 173 LIST OF PARTICIPANTS 177 Land cover and land use information systems for the European Union policy needs Luxembourg, 21-23 January 1998 OPENING Land cover and land use information systems for the European Union policy needs Luxembourg, 21-23 January 1998 OPENING SPEECH Y. FRANCHET DIRECTOR-GENERAL Eurostat Luxembourg Some ten years ago, in this very place, the Statistical Office of the European Communities, Eurostat, organised a seminar entitled Statistics of land use, the impact of remote sensing and other recent methodological developments. On this occasion, the president of the seminar, Sir John Boreham, quite rightly stressed that statistics on land cover/land use should not only be produced, but be used as well. He highlighted the dangers of an over-technological approach, centred on the increasing development of new information sources, such as remote sensing, emphasised the fundamental role of statisticians on concepts and methods and stressed the role of users "Actions by customers must be the start and the finish of specifying the best technology, methodology and medium for the statistics." Obviously, these remarks could still be used as the leading thread for our discussions over the next three days. For my part, I wish to stress a number of aspects, to be drawn up in the form of questions, which, I hope, will enable us to advance in the development of information systems on land cover/land use meeting the needs of Community policies. The first question which I consider fundamental is the problem of the wide range of existing needs and the solutions they are given. Without going into detail on these needs, which will be the subject of future presentations, it should be remembered that the implementation of Community policies has some impact on land cover and land use at all geographical levels and, as in the case of the Common Agricultural Policy, leaves a mark on the landscape. It must be possible to measure and assess this impact. Information and indicators are necessary for their management. The increasing multiplicity of these needs poses the problem of the development of new tools for methodological and technical reasons and reasons of cost alike and highlights the difficulty of offering a single solution. The second question which I consider important is that of development. Development can mean using the tools we have been provided with over recent years: Earth-observation satellites as an information source, geographical information systems as an analysis tool. It can also mean developing both existing tools (the traditional tools of statisticians that have proved their worth) and existing information sources in the Member States. Over the past decade, the issue of the interface between statistical data and geographical data has also arisen. The third question of interest to me as Director-General of Eurostat is the role of the statistician in the field of land cover/land use. In my view, it is a multiple one: firstly, from a conceptual and methodological point of view where the statistician is accustomed to integrating different information sources, standardising and harmonising by proposing nomenclatures, sampling designs or quality assurance methods. Secondly, he/she can to some extent act as an interlace between data and the user, by "decoding" the user's needs and providing value added to the various layers of existing data. Lastly, in view of the increase in needs and the inclusion of the spatial dimension of information, there has been an increasing level of cooperation with other disciplines: geographers, cartographers, planners, regional and local authorities, to enhance the knowledge of other approaches and fields. I will close this speech by setting out the reasons that led to Eurostat's interest in the field of land cover/land use over recent years and to its proposing this seminar. Land cover and land use information systems for the European Union policy needs Luxembourg, 21-23 January 1998 Land cover/land use are horizontal themes par excellence, covering numerous application domains. Eurostat, as a "horizontal" Directorate-General within the Commission, is responsible for providing harmonised statistical information at European level on topics which may be related to land cover/land use: agricultural, forestry, environmental and regional statistics. This position at Commission level has led us to propose the creation of an interservice group at Commission level on land cover/land use. It was at the initiative of this interservice group that this seminar was organised. I hope that these three working days will enable us to take major steps towards building information systems on land cover/land use meeting the needs of Community policies. 10 Land cover and land use information systems for the
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