CORINE Land Cover Database Research Articles

Future land use/cover changes in Romania: regional simulations based on CLUE-S model and CORINE land cover database

Since 1990, a series of fundamental political and socioeconomic transformations in Romania have led to important structural and functional changes in the land use/cover system. This paper aims to assess the past land use/cover dynamics during the period 1990–2006 and to simulate future changes (2007–2050) to identify the main land use/cover change processes and their potential environmental and land management implications. The simulation was carried out using the Conversion of Land Use and its Effects at Small regional extent (CLUE-S) model with the CORINE Land Cover (CLC) database and several biophysical and socioeconomic explanatory variables associated with the current land use/cover pattern. Using the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) method and cross-classification maps, statistical and spatial validation was assessed to evaluate the performance of the predicted data. The predicted map could represent a useful tool for monitoring and quantifying spatial and temporal land use/cover changes at national and particularly regional level, in order to adopt appropriate land use planning and environmental policy in line with sustainable development principles. In addition, the results could be used for further analyses to examine the consequences of land use/cover changes on landscape diversity and biodiversity, the interaction between land use/cover changes and natural hazards, or the implications for ecosystem services.

Impact of land cover change on ecosystem service supply in mountain systems: a case study in the Cantabrian Mountains (NW of Spain)

Land abandonment and the loss of traditional farming practices are thought to control land cover dynamics, and hence the ecosystem service supply in traditionally managed mountain landscapes. We evaluate the impact of land cover changes in Cantabrian Mountains (NW Spain), over 1990–2012, on the potential supply capacity of ecosystem services (regulating, provisioning, and cultural) at both regional and local scales. We also analyze trends in the use of ecosystem services at the local scale. Land cover changes were estimated from CORINE Land Cover database. Patterns of potential ecosystem service supply were assessed by applying an ecosystem service supply capacity matrix and trends in their actual use by using field data. Main trajectories of land cover change encompassed woody vegetation spread in semi-natural open systems and agricultural expansion in the most suitable areas. The capacity of landscape to provide ecosystem services improved during 1990–2012 at both scales. We detected trade-offs between the potential supply of ecosystem services associated to natural systems and those linked to traditional land uses, at both regional and local scales. Changes in the potential supply of ecosystem services matched trends in ecosystem service use. This study could help develop future scenarios to address upcoming challenges in ecosystem service supply.

Wykorzystanie zasobów baz danych GIS na potrzeby analizy zróżnicowania obszarów wiejskich w aspekcie działań PROW = Application of GIS databases for the analysis of rural areas diversity in the aspect of Rural Development Programme

A considerable number of measures taken under the Rural Development Programme have to be objectively and reasonably justified. These stem from strategic administrative decisions based on the results of analyses of complex natural, economic and demographic processes occurring in rural areas in time and space. Due to increasing functionality of the Geographical Information System (GIS) and wider availability of spatial information, the GIS databases and geospatial analyses are now the basis for solving spatial problems in the implementation of the Rural Development Programme. The aim of the study was to identify the features of rural areas in the Dolnośląskie Voivodeship (Lower Silesia Province) based upon selected components. For this purpose digital databases were employed. These are particularly relevant for sensible and sustainable rural development. With the use of the Corine Land Cover (CLC) database, the analysis concerning diversification of land cover and land use in the rural areas of the Dolnośląskie Voivodeship was carried out. Basing on the Digital Elevation Model (DEM), the terrain relief and land slopes were examined. By the means of soil and agriculture database, the analysis of spatial diversification of soil suitability was also performed. Moreover, with the use of the Polish Central Statistical Office databases, the spatial diversification of selected economic and demographic components in the analyzed area was evaluated. The analyses provide geo-visualizations, i.e. digital models presenting high spatial diversification of rural areas of the Dolnośląskie Voivodeship. The spatial diversification results from the high physiographic variability of this area. It should be stressed that the models are very practical and essential for the Rural Development Programme to be implemented by the authorities responsible for protection and rural development.

The use of NDVI and CORINE Land Cover databases for forest management in Serbia

A normalized difference vegetation index provides local forest managers with much essential annual information about the forest inventory. This article evaluates the possible use of NDVI and CORINE Land Cover databases for better forest management in the municipalities of Kursumlija and Topola in Serbia. The forest areas obtained using CLC were up to 11.5% larger than the official forest area estimates, whereas NDVI gave more precise results. This is of a crucial importance for preventing illegal logging, which is very prevalent in southern Serbian municipalities, which have substantial forested territory. NDVI is very promising for Serbia and also for countries that rarely carry out national forest inventories. This method can also easily be applied to other Balkan countries with a similar situation regarding local forest management.

Thermal map assessment under climate and land use changes; a case study for Uzundere Basin

Satellite images are commonly used for defining thermal urban environment and heat islands in urban areas. The objective of this study was to analyze and evaluate thermal environment of Uzundere-Erzurum using satellite images provided by the Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) sensor on board Landsat 5 satellite. In respect to land use and urban surface features, spatial characterization of thermal urban environment was defined. In order to define the link between surface emissivity, land surface temperatures (LST), and urban surface characteristics more effectively, the CORINE Land Cover (CLC) database for Uzundere was also used. Based on the Landsat satellite images, different land cover categories are defined, and the alterations of heat islands are identified according to these categories. The minimum and maximum surface temperatures were obtained from open spaces, non-vegetated bare rocky areas (-1.8 and 29.1°C, respectively). The surface temperature in the water areas was much better (7.5 and 21.9°C) and followed by green areas surface temperature (-0.9 and 28°C). Surface temperatures should be considered energy-focused planning.

The changes that occurred in land cover in postcommunist countries in Central Europe

Central European landscape has undergone dramatic changes during the last decades. Big changes in the political and economic systems resulted in a large-scale transformation in land use, especially in the agricultural and silvicultural sectors. At the same time, significant changes in urban regions were recorded. In order to quantify and compare the most important processes in land cover changes, we analyzed so-called land cover flows within four post-communist countries in Central Europe – Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland and Hungary – using CORINE Land Cover databases for 1990, 2000 and 2006. Contradictory processes in landscape change were recorded such as large scale agricultural extensification vs. intensification, or afforestation vs. deforestation. Moreover, there are significant regional differences in the changes in spatial patterns.

The link between landscape pattern and vegetation naturalness on a regional scale

The land use and land cover pattern of landscapes are key elements of basic landscape structure; accordingly, this pattern has an important role in landscape management, nature conservation and preservation. In Hungary, the naturalness of the vegetation was surveyed between 2003 and 2006, and the vegetation-based Natural Capital Index (NCI) was calculated for almost the entire area of the country. This field-based database gave us the unique opportunity to analyse the statistical connection between the naturalness of the vegetation and the landscape (land cover) pattern on a regional scale. In our study, we analysed the efficiency of the regional-level CORINE Land Cover (CLC) database for the estimation of the naturalness of the vegetation. This connection was analysed at the country scale using every (2272) Flora Mapping Unit (FMU), or 5.5×6.5km quadrate, of Hungary. We calculated the shape-, edge- and size-related landscape indices for all FMUs on a landscape level (including all CLC patches) and a class level (the land cover polygons were classified according to their land cover characteristics and their level of hemeroby). We determined the Spearman’s correlations to reveal the statistical connections between the landscape metric parameters and the NCI values. All of the investigated area-weighted landscape indices: Main Patch Size, (MPS), Main Fractal Dimension Index, (MFDI), Total Edge (TE), Main Shape Index (MSI) and Number of Shape Characteristic Points (NSCP) on the landscape level showed a significant statistical connection with the NCI, but the sign of its correlation with the NCI contrasted with the findings from previous studies on a larger scale. Our study shows that scale has a strong impact on the sign of the correlation between the naturalness of the vegetation and the landscape structure. On a class level, particularly the shape-related landscape indices of the “Forest and semi-natural areas” showed statistically significant correlations with the NCI. The correlation strongly depended on the method of classification of the CLC polygons. Furthermore, the spatial pattern of the land-cover-type-based CLC polygon categories showed higher correlation values with the NCI than CLC polygon classes, which were categorized according to their hemeroby state. These results show that although the sign of the spatial pattern change in the main land cover classes is scale-dependent, they can be used to estimate the increase or decrease in the naturalness of the vegetation better than the spatial changes of the hemeroby-level-based landscape pattern. We can predict the change in the naturalness of vegetation based on the spatial changes in the land cover pattern.

The impact of climatic and non-climatic factors on land surface temperature in southwestern Romania

Land surface temperature is one of the most important parameters related to global warming. It depends mainly on soil type, discontinuous vegetation cover, or lack of precipitation. The main purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between high LST, synoptic conditions and air masses trajectories, vegetation cover, and soil type in one of the driest region in Romania. In order to calculate the land surface temperature and normalized difference vegetation index, five satellite images of LANDSAT missions 5 and 7, covering a period of 26 years (1986–2011), were selected, all of them collected in the month of June. The areas with low vegetation density were derived from normalized difference vegetation index, while soil types have been extracted from Corine Land Cover database. HYSPLIT application was employed to identify the air masses origin based on their backward trajectories for each of the five study cases. Pearson, logarithmic, and quadratic correlations were used to detect the relationships between land surface temperature and observed ground temperatures, as well as between land surface temperature and normalized difference vegetation index. The most important findings are: strong correlation between land surface temperature derived from satellite images and maximum ground temperature recorded in a weather station located in the area, as well as between areas with land surface temperature equal to or higher than 40.0 °C and those with lack of vegetation; the sandy soils are the most prone to high land surface temperature and lack of vegetation, followed by the chernozems and brown soils; extremely severe drought events may occur in the region.

Landuse and NDVI change analysis of Sperchios river basin (Greece) with different spatial resolution sensor data by Landsat/MSS/TM and OLI

The assessment of land use–land cover (LULC) and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) changes on hydrology is essential for the development of sustainable water resource strategies. This study focuses on Sperchios river catchment, a complex and very heterogeneous area made up of numerous land covers that are difficult to map due to spectral similarities. Difficulties such as multi-seasonal spectral variables corresponding to different stages of land cover phenological development were addressed by choosing an unsupervised classification algorithm called k-means in combination with the Corine land cover database and past scientific studies. Available remote sensing data included three Landsat images (MSS, TM, OLI) all of which were resampled to a common 30-m resolution. Final LULC classifications in the period 1972–2013 separated forest, agricultural land and heath land and detected unified bare with urban land and pastures with areas of low vegetation. The recorded results include a significant reduction (–80%) of vegetation (NDVI values), 28 and 26% reduction rates in forests and pastures-low vegetation, respectively, a strong increase (114%) in heath land and an 47% increase, as concerns the agricultural land. Using of random points estimated the classification accuracy to be 75.4 and 85.2% for LULC of 1972–2013, respectively. This particular study constitutes a preliminary stage of an attempted integrated basin management of Sperchios river intending to contribute to overall ecological quality assessment of Sperchios river.

Importance of spatial scale in structuring emergent lake vegetation across environmental gradients and scales: GIS-based approach

Geographical information systems (GIS)-based approaches support the traditional empirical assessment and monitoring measures to indicate large-scale environmental alterations caused by global change. We examined the relationship between cover patterns of emergent aquatic plants derived from the CORINE land cover database, and environmental gradients (i.e. lake, climate and land cover and soil variables) at four different buffer scales (50m, 100m, 300m and 500m) in 408 boreal lakes in Finland. Our main statistical methods were hierarchical partitioning (HP), generalized linear models (GLM) and variation partitioning (VP).Based on correlations and HP, the importance of different buffer zones varied between environmental variables in explaining the vegetation cover. Our study also demonstrated that landscape productivity variables (i.e. Normalized Difference Vegetation Index and Tasseled Cap Greenness) strongly structured the vegetation cover. These productivity variables proved to be proxies for agricultural land and nutrient leaching from terrestrial areas to water, but they were also associated with shading of riparian vegetation. In the VP, land cover and soil variable groups influenced emergent vegetation cover the most, followed by lake and, lastly, by climate variables.Our work emphasized the importance of spatial scale in structuring freshwater assemblages that should be taken into account in ecological research and bioassessment. The use of a single spatial scale may lead to flawed results on the relevance of various environmental gradients on freshwater assemblages. Moreover, our study showed that satellite-based productivity variables can be powerful proxies for the amount of nutrients eventually entering aquatic ecosystems from adjacent terrestrial areas. The GIS-based approach used here provided an ecologically sound and cost-efficient early-warning estimation of vegetation overgrowth in boreal lakes. This approach is applicable to other regions with similar land cover data sets.

The analysis of spatial and temporal changes of land cover and land use in the reclaimed areas with the application of airborne orthophotomaps and LANDSAT images

Abstract The aim of this study was to investigate the possible use of geoinformatics tools and generally available geodata for mapping land cover/use on the reclaimed areas. The choice of subject was dictated by the growing number of such areas and the related problem of their restoration. Modern technology, including GIS, photogrammetry and remote sensing are relevant in assessing the reclamation effects and monitoring of changes taking place on such sites. The LULC classes mapping, supported with thorough knowledge of the operator, is useful tool for the proper reclamation process evaluation. The study was performed for two post-mine sites: reclaimed external spoil heap of the sulfur mine Machów and areas after exploitation of sulfur mine Jeziórko, which are located in the Tarnobrzeski district. The research materials consisted of aerial orthophotos, which were the basis of on-screen vectorization; LANDSAT satellite images, which were used in the pixel and object based classification; and the CORINE Land Cover database as a general reference to the global maps of land cover and land use.

Multicriteria analysis for sources of renewable energy using data from remote sensing

Abstract. Renewable energy sources are major components of the strategy to reduce harmful emissions and to replace depleting fossil energy resources. Data from remote sensing can provide information for multicriteria analysis for sources of renewable energy. Advanced land cover quantification makes it possible to search for suitable sites. Multicriteria analysis, together with other data, is used to determine the energy potential and socially acceptability of suggested locations. The described case study is focused on an area of surface coal mines in the northwestern region of the Czech Republic, where the impacts of surface mining and reclamation constitute a dominant force in land cover changes. High resolution satellite images represent the main input datasets for identification of suitable sites. Solar mapping, wind predictions, the location of weirs in watersheds, road maps and demographic information complement the data from remote sensing for multicriteria analysis, which is implemented in a geographic information system (GIS). The input spatial datasets for multicriteria analysis in GIS are reclassified to a common scale and processed with raster algebra tools to identify suitable sites for sources of renewable energy. The selection of suitable sites is limited by the CORINE land cover database to mining and agricultural areas. The case study is focused on long term land cover changes in the 1985-2015 period. Multicriteria analysis based on CORINE data shows moderate changes in mapping of suitable sites for utilization of selected sources of renewable energy in 1990, 2000, 2006 and 2012. The results represent map layers showing the energy potential on a scale of a few preference classes (1-7), where the first class is linked to minimum preference and the last class to maximum preference. The attached histograms show the moderate variability of preference classes due to land cover changes caused by mining activities. The results also show a slight increase in the more preferred classes for utilization of sources of renewable energy due to an increase area of reclaimed sites. Using data from remote sensing, such as the multispectral images and the CORINE land cover datasets, can reduce the financial resources currently required for finding and assessing suitable areas.

The Role of Vegetation in Mitigating Urban Land Surface Temperatures: A Case Study of Munich, Germany during the Warm Season

The Urban Heat Island (UHI) is the phenomenon of altered increased temperatures in urban areas compared to their rural surroundings. UHIs grow and intensify under extreme hot periods, such as during heat waves, which can affect human health and also increase the demand for energy for cooling. This study applies remote sensing and land use/land cover (LULC) data to assess the cooling effect of varying urban vegetation cover, especially during extreme warm periods, in the city of Munich, Germany. To compute the relationship between Land Surface Temperature (LST) and Land Use Land Cover (LULC), MODIS eight-day interval LST data for the months of June, July and August from 2002 to 2012 and the Corine Land Cover (CLC) database were used. Due to similarities in the behavior of surface temperature of different CLCs, some classes were reclassified and combined to form two major, rather simplified, homogenized classes: one of built-up area and one of urban vegetation. The homogenized map was merged with the MODIS eight-day interval LST data to compute the relationship between them. The results revealed that (i) the cooling effect accrued from urban vegetation tended to be non-linear; and (ii) a remarkable and stronger cooling effect in terms of LST was identified in regions where the proportion of vegetation cover was between seventy and almost eighty percent per square kilometer. The results also demonstrated that LST within urban vegetation was affected by the temperature of the surrounding built-up and that during the well-known European 2003 heat wave, suburb areas were cooler from the core of the urbanized region. This study concluded that the optimum green space for obtaining the lowest temperature is a non-linear trend. This could support urban planning strategies to facilitate appropriate applications to mitigate heat-stress in urban area.

The potential wind erosion map of an area covered by sandy and loamy soils – based on wind tunnel measurements

Summary. Wind erosion causes an enormous problem in agriculture, and the stirred-up dust influences the air quality and is harmful for human health. In the cultivated agricultural areas of Hungary, soils with different textures often suffer from wind erosion, and due to the global climate change an ever increasing risk rate can be expected. In this study we examined in a wind tunnel the thresholds of wind velocity and erodibility of 80 different soil samples originated from an area covering of approximately 5,000 km 2 . Afterwards, based on the resulting data the soils with different texture types were categorized in erosion risk classes. Using the experimental results and the CORINE land cover database, we compiled a potential wind erosion map for the studied area.

Preparation of a dynamic simulation model to support decision making in a sensitive rural area

This paper focuses on the demonstration of a conceptual framework and a dynamic simulation based tool, through the example of southern catchment basin of Lake Balaton. The objective is to support the sustainable and reasonable environmental management by model based investigation of various scenarios.
 In the developed hydrological model, the coherence is given by the compartmentalized dynamic network of water flows and water bodies. The completeness is solved by the complete and disjoint covering of the whole area by modeled patches, corresponding to the CORINE land cover database of natural and human built environment. The complexity of the large scale and long term processes is managed by evaluating detailed models only for one representative patch from each class, while the calculation of the similar patches is solved by simple multiplication rules. According to the first experiences, the developed framework is able to integrate the field experts’ knowledge (data, relations, empirical knowledge, etc.) for the prediction of land use effects besides different climatic scenarios. It is noted, that continuous extension and refinement of the model and of the involved data is necessary, especially through more realistic case studies.

Surface Water Quality in Relation to Land Cover in Agricultural Catchments (Liswarta River Basin Case Study)

Agricultural activity results in water pollution from nitrogen and phosphorus compounds. Increased concentrations of nitrogen compounds pose a threat to animal and human health. The purpose of this study was to determine the impact of agriculture in a catchment basin on the level of surface water pollution from biogenic compounds. Spatial analysis of the land cover was conducted using GIS and was based on data from the Corine Land Cover databases. The study results indicated that high concentrations of nitrogen and phosphorus compounds existed in the surface waters. In the surface water, high concentrations of biogenic compounds occurred in both primarily agricultural catchments and in urbanized drainage areas. Water may be regarded as eutrophicated or at high risk of eutrophication because the majority of the nitrate concentrations at the monitoring sites exceeded a limit of 10 mg·dm -3 NO3 2. Inadequate farming practices and poor sanitary conditions on farmsteads result in the leaching of biogenic substances into the water. To protect water from biogenic pollutants, it is necessary to adopt a new approach to fertilizer use and to improve the sanitary conditions of agricultural properties, which can be achieved by, among other things, the installation of drainage systems in rural areas. Our recommendations include the protection of river valleys as follows: by stopping deforestation, by preserving natural riparian vegetation, and by reducing the volume of intensified agricultural activity or introducing so-called “precision farming.”

Spatial and Temporal Dynamic of Rural and Urban Landscapes Identified in the “Iron Gates” Natural Park

AbstractIn the present paper, we identified landscape typologies in the “Iron Gates” Natural Park from Romania and assessed their dynamic starting with 1990 to 2006. We evaluated the dynamic of landscapes based on land use and land covers changes as extracted from the Corine Land Cover databases. We found no major modifications in the distribution of landscapes, only 4.4% of the study area recording changes. Forestry landscapes have the highest ratio of change (on 1.5% from the total surface of the park), with significant decreases also recorded in landscapes of shrub and rare vegetation, as well as mixed agricultural landscapes. Among the active transformation processes, forestation (on 45% of the modified surface) and agricultural activities (20%) recorded the highest distribution.

Photo Based Volunteered Geographic Information Initiatives

Volunteered Geographic Information has become exponentially available over the Web in the last years. This availability can hide a vast geographical richness and provides us with both a great opportunity to explore new ways to use it and also big challenges related with its unstructured nature. This paper conducts a preliminary analysis of the adequacy of photos from the Flickr and Panoramio initiatives in order to use them as a source of field data in the quality control of the Land Use/Cover databases production. It evaluates its temporal and spatial distributions over Continental Portugal and also its distribution over Land Use/Cover classes using as a reference the European Corine Land Cover database. It concludes that this source is very valuable but needs to be combined with other sources due to its uneven spatial distribution.

Probability-based harmonization of digital maps to produce conceptual soil maps

Three centrally edited nationwide soil maps were published in Hungary between 1953 and 1988. Each of these soil maps has advantages, but serious drawbacks as well. Authors’ hypothesis was that the drawbacks of the individual soil maps are correctable with the help of other soil maps and with ancillary data. Therefore, the oldest soil map was digitized and a study was conducted for the harmonization of data on a 266 km2 area at Keszthely (near Lake Balaton) by using the CHAID classification tree method. CORINE land cover database, digital map of surface geology, digital elevation model and derived slope categories were used as ancillary data.The seven source maps contained 7–38 categories. After the intersection of all seven maps, the resulting file contained more than 50,000 polygons and nearly 14,000 category combinations. A variable — showing the probability of the category combinations in relation to the expected areas — was calculated. This was the target variable for classification by the CHAID method, using categories of the seven original maps as independent variables.0.5% of the total area was grouped into 13 less probable classes, which represent the inaccuracies of the initial maps. 99.5% of the total area was classified into 19 classes and some of them were further subdivided on the basis of the geological map. These classes were interpreted as eight WRB soil categories. The final soil map had much better spatial resolution than any of the initial soil maps, non-soil categories were interpreted as soil categories and spatial accuracy was successfully corrected with the proposed method.

Implementing the DPSIR framework to link water quality of rivers to land use: methodological issues and preliminary field test

ABSTRACTRiver functioning is closely influenced by land uses, along the stream itself and throughout the catchment. Land uses can be seen as both the expression of the natural environment and the result of increasing human activities. Land uses generate various pressures that affect river water quality at different scales of time and space. The assessment of multi-scale impacts of land use on river water quality is a major issue for scientists and for water managers who have to reach ambitious and rigorous legislative objectives. The ‘driving forces, pressures, state, impact, responses’ (DPSIR) conceptual framework is promoted by the European Environmental Agency for this purpose. A rigorous methodology, following a decision cycle-based approach, has been settled to help the implementation of the DPSIR on an environmental issue and its test on a field site. We develop a system of indicators based on the literature review and in accordance with water managers. The selected indicators are able to characterize the spatial and temporal evolution of water quality, land uses and their interactions. Pressure indicators are built according to the nature of the land use, the distance to rivers and the location in the watershed, at three spatial scales. We use two land-uses databases, the European Corine Land Cover database for macro-scale indicators and a high-resolution map for meso-scale and micro-scale indicators. Water quality status is characterized by a bioindicator based on population of invertebrates. The methodology is tested on the Ognon basin, which is a sub-catchment of Saône River (France). Results show that it is easy to implement the driving forces–pressures–state–impacts–responses for land use and river ecosystems framework on a medium-size catchment. But some limitations must be underlined: (1) the land-use data suffer from a lack of precision in their topological description and in the definition of the land-use nomenclature; (2) there was not enough bioindicators data to analyse, both the spatial and temporal variability of the bioindicators on the whole data set, but their spatial variability could be easily studied for a given year and (3) despite the difficulty to synthesize responses in a simple and unique indicator, the available data help to target areas for implementing actions. Lastly, this study leads us to work in close cooperation with water stakeholders, to share a common conceptual framework and to support their decision-making.