Brief Description of the Projects CORINE Land Cover 2000 and CORINE Land Cover 2006

In the European Union's CORINE Land Cover 2000 Program (CLC2000), land use and land cover information is to be brought up-to-date for all of Europe with the help of satellite data. This activity is based on a uniform methodology and a classification key which has been harmonized since the first survey was undertaken in 1990. The goal is to create a common database which permits comparisons of land cover and land use as well as identification of any changes occurring in the time interval between 1990 and 2000, and makes possible ecological appraisals with their consequences for regional planning both at European and national levels.

A further update of the data base CORINE Land Cover is running since 2007. The reference year is 2006. Main aspect of CLC2006 in the European context are the changes between 2000 and 2006.

Within the framework of the European CLC2000 project the data base of the first survey 1990 was updated for all of Europe using the year 2000 as a base year, and changes with respect to CLC1990 are being mapped.

Identification of land use changes was accomplished by visual interpretation supplemented by automated processes in a GIS supported system. The classification for Germany includes 37 land cover classes in three hierarchical levels. The main categories are developed areas, agricultural land, forests and natural landscapes, wetlands, and water bodies. The recording scale is 1:100,000, whereby newly identified areas are included if over 25 ha in size, and changes in land use if the new borders alter the area by at least 5 ha. Areas of linear form such as rivers are included if wider than 100 m.

Data basis for the year 2000 are uniformly orthorectified Landsat-7 data from 1999-2001 for all of Europe (responsible institution: JRC, in the Image2000 project). At DFD the CLC1990 vector database and the satellite data from the 1990 activities were adjusted to these orthorectified data. The significant result of CLC2000 are two data sets: an up-to-date mapping of land cover, CLC2000, and mapping of changes with respect to CLC1990. In addition, any corrections found to be needed to the 1990 data set as a result of the interpretation process are published within an CLC1990 revised data set.

The update of the CLC dataset regarding the reference year 2006 is done using a database of SPOT-4, SPOT-5 and IRS-P6 LISS-3 data, which have been collected on behalf of ESA under the name IMAGE2006. Besides a summer coverage (data between 2005 and 2007), an additional coverage, a spring coverage, was built-up, which is to enable an improved separation of arable land and pasture land in agriculture. The ortho-rectification of the IMAGE2006 data was done at the Remote Sensing Technology Institute (IMF), located at DLR in Oberpfaffenhofen.

The update CORINE Land Cover 2006 is done mainly due to the same specifications as for CLC2000. However, the change layer CLC2006_Change is in the foreground. In CLC2006_Change, also changes with the minimum of 5 ha are recorded which have no effects on an extension of present areas more than 25 ha in size, or on new areas fulfilling the a minimum mapping unit of 25 ha.

On the European level, the European Environment Agency (EEA) was responsible for the management and the coordination with the member states, assisted by the European Topic Centre for Terrestrial Environment (ETC-TE). A technical team of ETC-TE was built for the technical assistance, the training, the data integration and validation. The Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission was responsible for the subproject Image2000. The Image2000 team performed the selection, acquisition and ortho-rectification of the satellite data (Landsat-7 ETM+) assisted by the national project team.

At national level, project teams were built which performed the interpretation of satellite data, the mapping of land cover and land cover changes, the quality assurance and the validation. Responsible for the management and the performance of the German subproject was the German Remote Sensing Data Center of DLR in Oberpfaffenhofen, on behalf of the Federal Environmental Agency as national responsible institution. By a tender process, the companies EFTAS and GAF AG as well as a consortium of Infoterra GmbH, Hugin GmbH and Delphi IMM were integrated in the German CLC2000 project.

The running update of CORINE Land Cover in Germany is guided again by the German Remote Sensing Data Center on behalf of UBA. By a tender process, the companies EFTAS, GAF AG as well as Infoterra GmbH are integrated in the German CLC2006 project.

The German CLC2000 project was funded in the frame of the UBA F+E project under the number FKZ 201 12 209 with a share of funding by the European Union.

The update CORINE Land Cover 2006 for Germany is funded in the frame of the UBA F+E projects under the number FKZ 3707 12 200 and FKZ 3708 12 200.