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driven by application. Land use/land cover extensible 
classification’s extension should follow the principles as below. 
• User requirement principle 
• Simplify and truly principle 
• Focus and universal principle 
• Interoperability and exchangeability principle 
• Compatibility principle 
• Extensible principle 
• Stability principle. 
4.2 Extension classification method 
The definitions and domain values are intended to be 
sufficiently generic to satisfy the land use/land cover 
classification needs of various disciplines. However, the very 
diversity of land use/land cover data means that generic 
classification may not accommodate all applications. The paper 
designs the rules and methods for defining and applying 
additional classification to better serve special user needs. 
4.2.1 Types of extensions 
The following types of extensions shall be allowed: 
• adding a new classification section or element; 
• creating a new classification element code list to replace 
the domain of an existing element that has “free text” 
listed as its domain value; 
• creating new classification elements code list (expanding a 
code list); 
• adding a new classification section or element; 
• adding a new classification section or element entity; 
• imposing a more stringent obligation on an existing 
classification element; 
• imposing a more restrictive domain on an existing 
classification element. 
4.2.2 Creating an extension 
Prior to the creation of extended classification a careful review 
of the existing classification within this 3 tier framework must 
be performed to confirm that suitable classification section does 
not already exist. For each extended classification section, sub 
section, and/or element, the name, short name, definition, 
obligation, condition, data type, and domain values shall be 
defined. 
4.2.3 Rules for creating an extension 
• Extended classification sections or elements shall not be 
used to change the name, definition or data type of an 
existing section or element. 
• Extended classification may be defined as sections and 
may include extended and existing classification elements 
as components. 
• An extension is permitted to impose more stringent 
obligation on existing classification elements than the 
standard requires. (Classification elements that are optional 
in the standard may be mandatory in an extension.) 
• An extension is permitted to contain classification 
elements with domains that are more restrictive than the 
standard. (Classification elements whose domains have 
free text in the standard may have a closed list of 
appropriate values in the profile.) 
• An extension is permitted to restrict the use of domain 
values allowed by the classification framework. (If the 
framework contains five values in the domain of an 
existing classification element, the extension may specify 
that its domain consists of three domain values. The 
extension shall require that the user select a value from the 
three domain values.) 
• An extension is permitted to expand the number of values 
in a code list. 
• An extension shall not permit anything not allowed by the 
classification framework. 
4.2.4 Community profile 
If the information to be added is extension, involving the 
creation of many classification elements within a classification 
section, specific to a discipline or application, co-ordination of 
the proposed extension via user groups and creation of a 
community profile is recommended. 
4.2.5 Rules for creating a profile 
• Before creating a profile, the user shall check registered 
profiles. 
• A profile must adhere to the rules for defining an extension. 
• A profile shall not change the name, definition, or data 
type of a classification section or element. 
• A profile shall include: 
- the core classes collected for a application of land 
use/land cover 
- all mandatory classification elements in all mandatory 
sections 
- all conditional classification elements in all 
mandatory sections, if the it meets the condition required 
by the classification element 
- all mandatory classification elements in all 
conditional sections, if the it meets the condition required 
by the section 
- all conditional classification elements in all 
conditional sections, if the it meets the condition required 
by the classification element and the section 
• Relationships shall be defined so that a structure and 
schema can be determined. 
• A profile .shall be made available to anyone receiving 
classification that was created according to that profile. 
5. CONCLUSIONS 
Land sue/land cover classification system is a basic research 
area in LUCC. Facing to the problem of different land use/land 
cover datasets can not be shared and integrated under different 
classification systems, the paper proposed a kind of dynamic 
land use/land cover classification framework based on ISO 
19115 metadata extension model. This framework not only 
contains the original classification’s structure, but also can 
adapt to the variety of different discipline’s research 
requirements dynamically. According to the requirements of 
land use/land cover change research in coastal zone area, an 
experiment application classification system is designed based 
on the framework in this paper. 
REFERENCES 
Geist H J ,Lambin E F. What drives tropical deforestation? 
LUCC Report Series. 2001 , (4). 
Turner B L II , Clark W C , Kates R W, et al . The earth as 
transformed by human action. Global and regional changes in 
the biosphere over the past 300 years. Cambridge University