3.1.3 Mixed Forest 
3.2.1 Natural Grasslands 
3.2.2 Moors and Heathland 
3.2.3 Sclerophyllous Vegetation 
3.2.4 Transitional Woodland-Scrub 
3.3.1 Beaches, Dunes, Sands 
3.3.2 Bare Rocks 
3.3.3 Sparsely Vegetated Areas 
3.3.4 Burnt Areas 
3.3.5 Glaciers and Perpetual Snow 
4.1.1 Inland Marshes 
4.1.2 Peat Bogs 
4.2.1 Salt Marshes 
4.2.2 Salines 
4.2.3 Intertidal Flats 
5.1.1 Water Courses 
5.1.2 Water Bodies 
5.2.1 Coastal Lagoons 
5.2.2 Estuaries 
5.2.3 Sea and Ocean 
Apart from the fixed Nomenclature and the common map 
scale employed in each member state, the CORINE land 
cover maps contain only land cover parcels with a mini- 
mum size of 25ha. Hence all mapped areas have to be 
generalised into polygons of such a size as to match this 
constraint. 
In principle the defined Nomenclature is used for each 
member state in the EC. Some states, however, have in- 
troduced a fourth level of detail for local purposes, 
though this does not form part of the CORINE standard. 
The Nomenclature was originally designed with the ob- 
jective of representing all types of landscape including 
northern European/Scandinavian landscapes (e.g. lre- 
land, Denmark) and Mediterranean landscapes (e.g. 
Portugal, Greece). 
2. STATUS OF THE EC LAND COVER MAP 
2.1 Current Situation 
The total area of the EC Member States is approximately 
2.25 Million hectares. The mapping for this area is being 
undertaken by project teams in the individual states un- 
der the direction of the CORINE Land Cover Team 
which is part of the European Environment Agency Task 
Force. 
The work on the CORINE project commenced in 1985, 
and by the beginning of 1992 the full land cover maps 
had been produced only for Portugal and Luxembourg 
(and in addition the island of Corsica). 
The initial mapping exercise is being undertaken primar- 
ily by manual photo-interpretation using hard copy Land- 
sat Thematic Mapper images. In some areas additional 
information in the form of topographic maps, orthophotos 
and air photos have been used. At the present time the 
full database status is shown in table 1. 
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DB STATUS COUNTRIES 
Digital database complete Portugal 
Luxembourg 
Information at map sheet level Spain 
digitised (but not yet integrated into Netherlands 
database) 
Images selected/pre-processed and/or |France 
interpretation in progress Belgium 
Italy 
Greece 
Denmark 
Information at national level in Ireland 
preparation but no interpretation yet | Germany 
carried out 
  
  
  
  
Table 1. Status of the CORINE Land Cover Project, 
Spring 1992. 
The United Kingdom, has followed a separate methodol- 
ogy which does not fit with the CORINE land cover defi- 
nition and is therefore not included in the categories in 
table 1. However it is likely that the UK product will be 
integrated into the land cover database in the future. 
Also, several states outside the Community (e.g. Eastern 
European and North African states) have shown interest 
in following the CORINE Land Cover approach and it is 
likely that the eventual database coverage will be more 
extensive than just the 12 existing members of the EC. 
2.2. The Need for Updating 
For statistical accuracy it is necessary to revise the land 
cover maps on a regular basis to reflect real changes in 
the European landscape besides correcting any errors 
existing in the first edition maps. At present the method- 
ology for revising the maps and the revision frequency 
have yet to be defined. However it is apparent that for 
economic reasons the revision procedure should be 
automated as much as possible and that the frequency 
of revision should be sufficient to observe significant 
land use changes which either require central interven- 
tion by the Community or which affect Community policy. 
For these reasons the Joint Research Centre (JRC) is 
investigating the potential role of automatic methods 
based on digital remote sensing data. 
3. EXPERIMENTAL STUDIES ON FIRST 
EDITION MAPS 
3.1 Experiments in Portugal 
Our studies on possible updating approaches have so 
far been restricted to Portugal and Luxembourg as the 
only two member states with completed maps. 
In 1991 an extensive field survey was carried out in both 
countries with the aim of understanding the characteris- 
tics of the first edition maps and to identify any con- 
straints that would apply to the map revision exercise. A 
total of eleven test sites were selected all of which were 
within approximately 60km. of the city of Lisbon (see fig-