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THE EUROPEAN CORINE LAND COVER DATABASE
G. Büttner, Member of LCTU, FÓMI, Budapest, Hungary
C. Steenmans, Project Manager, EEA, Copenhagen, Denmark
M. Bossard, Leader of LCTU, IGN FL, Paris, France
J. Feranec, Member of LCTU, IG SAS, Bratislava, Slovak Republic
J. Kolár, Leader of PTL/LC, GISAT, Prague, Czech Republic
Commission VII
KEY WORDS: CORINE Programme, land cover, database, satellite images, photointerpretation, change detection, environmental
applications
ABSTRACT
The aim of the CORINE Land Cover mapping is to provide information on the state and changing biophysical coverage of the Earth's surface.
The European Union's CORINE (Co-ordination of Information on the Environment) Land Cover project was initiated in the EU countries in
the 80's to provide quantitative, consistent and comparable information on land cover, at scale 1:100.000. After political changes in Central
and Eastern Europe, the project has been extended to the east within the frames of the Phare Programme. Today the CORINE Land Cover
database covers 31 countries.
CORINE Land Cover is mapped by interpretation of satellite images, and the results are stored as database in a Geographic Information
System. This database represents a basic tool for studies on the environment, impact assessment and regional planning on national as well as on
European level.
The paper gives a short historical overview about the evolution of the project and introduces its recent institutional background. It is followed
by a brief technical overview of the basic methodology and discussion on the two most exciting extensions of the project: land cover change
detection and mapping at larger scale. Finally some applications of CORINE Land Cover data are summarised.
1. EVOLUTION OF THE PROJECT
1.1 CORINE Land Cover in the European Union
The idea to produce a uniform pan-European land cover database
dates back to the early 80's. It has been recognised that land cover is
a basic information for the management of the environment and
natural resources. Land cover mapping has become integral part of
the CORINE (Coordination of Information on the Environment)
Programme, started in 1985 by the European Commission
Directorate General XI (EC DGXI) with the main aim to compile
consistent and compatible information on the environment for
countries of the European Union.
Information provided by earth observation satellites has become a
basic data support to produce land cover inventory. Following a
feasibility study, basic methodological questions had been clarified
(nomenclature, scale, guidelines for visual photointerpretation, etc).
As pilot project, Portugal was the first country that had been mapped
between 1986 and 1990. After that the CORINE Land Cover
methodology had been finalised and a Technical Guide was produced
(European Commission, 1993).
In 1994 the European Environment Agency has started its operation
in Copenhagen (Denmark), taking over the maintenance and use of
the CORINE Land Cover database as well.
CORINE Land Cover project has been implemented in most of the
EU countries as well as in the Phare partner countries in Central and
Eastern Europe, Morocco and Tunisia. In each country local team(s)
had implemented the project along the supervision of the CORINE
Land Cover Technical Unit (LCTU). North European countries
(Sweden, Finland) and Great Britain have developed specific GIS
based procedures capable to derive CORINE Land Cover classes,
starting from automatic classification of satellite imagery (Jaakkola,
1994; Swedish Space Corporation, 1994).
1.2 CORINE Land Cover in Central and Eastern Europe
Following political changes in Central and Eastern Europe, CORINE
Land Cover had started in 1993 in six countries (Bulgaria, Czech
Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovak Republic and Romania), in the
frames of the Phare Regional Environment Programme. They had
finished their project in 1996 (Steenmans and Bossard, 1996).
Owing to the good project coordination provided by LCTU, and
enthusiasm of national teams, the quality of these databases is very
high. The CORINE Land Cover inventory of above six countries
has been published on a CD-ROM (Dewos, 1997; Phare, 1996).
As continuation of the Phare programme, five new countries
(Albania, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Slovenia) have started their
project in 1996 and two other countries of the former Yugoslavia,
Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia will start soon. Table 1
summarises countries and organisations involved in the CORINE
Land Cover project.
1.3. Topic Centre and Topic Link on Land Cover
The European Environment Agency (EEA), established by the
Commission, handles the European Environment Information
and Observation Network (EIONET). Institutions or
organisations have been contracted as European Topic Centres to
execute particular tasks identified in the Agency’s multi-annual
work programme, one of which is the European Topic Centre on
Land Cover (ETC/LC). The main objective of the ETC/LC is to
produce, provide and manage land cover information for
environmental policy development and implementation in
Europe.
During the first 2 years of operation, the ETC/LC concentrated on
the completion of the CORINE Land Cover database for the EU
member states, on merging with the Central and Eastern European
CORINE Land Cover inventory and gearing up the ETC/LC
network activities.
Intemational Archives of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. Vol. XXXII, Part 7, Budapest, 1998 633
