Table 3: 
CORINE Land Cover nomenclature (European Commission, 1993) 
  
LEVEL 1 LEVEL 2 
LEVEL 3 
  
1. ARTIFICIAL 1.1. Urban fabric 
SURFACES 
units 
areas 
1.2. Industrial, commercial and transport 
1.3. Mine, dump and construction sites 
1.4. Artificial, non-agricultural vegetated 
1.1.1. Continuous urban fabric 
1.1.2. Discontinuous urban fabric 
1.2.1. Industrial or commercial units 
1.2.2. Road and rail networks and associated land 
1.2.3. Port areas 
1.2.4. Airports 
1.3.1. Mineral extraction sites 
1.3.2. Dump sites 
1.3.3. Construction sites 
1.4.1. Green urban areas 
1.4.2. Port and leisure facilities 
  
2. AGRICULTURAL 2.1. Arable land 
AREAS 
2.2. Permanent crops 
2.3. Pastures 
2.4. Heterogeneous agricultural areas 
2.1.1. Non-irrigated arable land 
2.1.2. Permanently irrigated land 
2.1.3. Rice fields 
2.2.1. Vineyards 
2.2.2. Fruit trees and berry plantations 
2.2.3. Olive groves 
2.3.1. Pastures 
2.4.1. Annual crops associated with permanent crops 
2.4.2. Complex cultivation patterns 
2.4.3. Land principally occupied by agriculture, with 
significant areas of natural vegetation 
2.4.4. Agro-forestry areas 
  
3. FOREST AND 3.1. Forests 
SEMI-NATURAL 
AREAS 
3.3. Open spaces with little or no 
vegetation 
3.2. Scrub and/or herbaceous associations | 3.2.1. Natural grassland 
3.1.1. Broad-leaved forest 
3.1.2. Coniferous forest 
3.1.3. Mixed forest 
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. WETLANDS 4.1. Inland wetlands 
4.2. Marine wetlands 
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. WATER BODIES 5.1. Inland waters 
5.2. Marine waters 
  
  
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 
  
middle infrared channel (IRS-1C/D, SPOT-4) certainly increase the 
possibilities. 
Field checking is an integral part of the project methodology either 
for resolving ambiguities or for general examination of the 
photointerpretation results. To ensure consistency and comparability 
the technical guidebook (European Commission, 1993) includes 
instructions and examples for each steps of the methodology. 
The result of photointerpretation is digitised and stored in 
topologically structured format. The final product is a digital land 
cover database in a GIS. At the beginning of the project mostly table 
digitising was used. Recently, most teams use vector scanning and a 
subsequent vectorising, with different levels of automatisation. The 
use of CAPI for verification and improve the quality of the 
photointerpretation is highly recommended (Bittner, 1997). Table 2 
summarises some of the important characteristics of the 
database. 
2.2 Nomenclature 
The standard CORINE Land Cover nomenclature includes 44 
land cover classes (Table 3). These are grouped in a three level 
hierarchy. The five level-one categories are: 1) artificial surfaces, 
2) agricultural areas 3) forest and semi-natural areas, 4) 
wetlands, 5) water bodies. All national teams have to adapt the 
nomenclature according to the landscape conditions. For national 
636 International Archives of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. Vol. XXXII, Part 7, Budapest, 1998 
  
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