Since July 1997, the EEA activities on Land Cover are now 
extended with support from the DGIA Phare Programme towards 
Central and Eastern European countries by the creation of the 
Phare Topic Link on Land Cover (PTL/LC). This body, 
consisting of four institutions from Phare countries has been 
contracted to provide and develop land cover information for and 
about Phare countries. Main results of the first year activity of 
PTL/LC are: establishment of a land cover information centre on 
Internet (http://www.gisat.cz/ptl) and the definition of CORINE 
4™ level nomenclature for Phare countries (see point 3). 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Table 1: 
Status of CORINE Land Cover (ETC/LC, 1997a; Phare, 1996) 
country area [contractor status no. of 
(km?) sheets 
Albania 29000|GSC in progress 36 
Austria 84000|Umweltbundesamt | compl. in 1996 35 
Belgium 31000|IGN/NGI compl. in 1995 22 
Bosnia- 51000|GZ BiH starts in 1998 38 
Herzegovina 
Bulgaria 111000| Ministry of compl. in 1996| 105 
Environment 
Czech 79000|GISAT compl. in 1996 94 
Republic 
Denmark 44000|AFA compl. in 1994 37 
Estonia 45000|EEIC compl. in 1998 37 
Finland 337000|FEI compl. in 1999| 342 
France 550000|IGN FI compl.in 1996| 311 
Germany 357000|Stat. Bundesamt |compl. in 1996| 266 
Greece 132000] HEMCO compl. in 1995| 134 
Hungary 93000| FÓMI compl. in 1996 84 
  
Ireland (incl.| | 84000|OSI, OSNI compl. in 1993 15 
N. Ireland) 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Italy 302000|ITA Consortio |compl. in 1996| 278 
Latvia 64000|LEDC compl. in 1998 44 
Lithuania 65000|HNIT-Baltic compl. in 1998 42 
Luxemburg 2600|Walphot, G'ERE |compl. in 1990 1 
F.YR.O. 25000{ Ministry of starts in 1998 22 
Macedonia Urban Planning 
Netherlands | 42000|SC-DLO compl. in 1992 8 
Poland 313000|IGIK compl.in 1996| 297 
Portugal 92000|CNIG compl. in 1990 53 
Romania 238000 |IGR compl. in 1996| 196 
Slovak 49000|1G SAS compl. in 1996 55 
Republic 
Slovenia 20000|GZS compl. in 1998 20 
Spain 505000{IGN compl. in 1991] 296 
Sweden 450000|SSC starts in 1998 225 
United 240000|ITE starts in 1998 204 
Kingdom 
Total: 28  |4434600 3297 
  
  
With the set-up of the PTL/LC, this European network for land 
cover information exchange is now extended to 31 countries. 
This Extended ETC/LC will work on one work programme for 
monitoring, data and information gathering, analysis and 
reporting on land cover and land use related issues at a European 
scale. 
From today, the Extended ETC/LC will concentrate on three 
main tasks: 
e the support and development of policy relevant European 
environmental applications and indicators for land cover; 
e the maintenance and update of the European CORINE Land 
Cover database and linking with other European and 
international networks, 
e land cover and land use change analysis at European level. 
As an integral part of those tasks, the ETC/LC is providing 
support to the Commission and other ETCs in the integration of 
land cover data with other environmental data for European 
applications, mainly in the domains of nature conservation, land 
planning and water management. The ETC/LC will concentrate 
during 1998 on following EC policy relevant issues: 
e support to DGVII (Transport) and DGXI (Environment and 
Nuclear Safety) on the strategic environmental assessment 
of the trans-European transport network for revision of the 
guidelines in 1999; 
e support to DGXVI (Regional Development) on the 
development of the European Spatial Development 
perspective in 1998; 
e support to the ETC on Nature Conservation for the 
preparation of NATLAN, which is a new EEA key product 
for 1998 for presentation and dissemination of nature and 
land cover related information; 
e support to the ETC on Inland Waters on the development of 
the DGXI proposed water resources framework by the use 
and integration of land cover data in a Geographic 
Information System (GIS) environment. 
The specific role of PTL/LC in fulfilling the tasks of the 
Extended ETC/LC is: 
e to produce a retrospective CORINE Land Cover database of 
the 70's in Central and Eastern Europe using archived 
Landsat MSS images; 
e to analyse and report major land cover and land use 
changes, which took place on the 2™ level of the 
nomenclature in a period of twenty years (PTL/LC, 1998); 
e  toassist ETC/LC in its issues of support to the Commission 
if appropriate, including cooperation with other PTLs. 
2. TECHNOLOGY OF CORINE LAND COVER MAPPING 
2.1 Elements of the methodology 
The basic aim of the CORINE Land Cover project is to provide an 
inventory of the Earth surface features for managing the 
environment. The approach of computer assisted — visual 
interpretation of satellite images have been chosen as mapping 
methodology. The choice of scale (1:100.000), minimum area to be 
mapped (25 hectares) and minimum width of linear elements (100 
metres) represent a trade-off between cost and detail of land cover 
information. 
634 International Archives of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. Vol. XXXII, Part 7, Budapest, 1998 
  
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