Land Use and Land cover statistics (LUCAS)

EUROPEAN COMMISSION EUROSTAT Directorate E: Sectoral and regional statistics Doc. ENV/DIMESA/7.1/2012 Original in EN Agenda point 7.1 Land Use and Land cover statistics (LUCAS) DIMESA Directors' Meeting on "Environmental statistics and accounts" 24 and 25 April 2012, Luxembourg

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The purpose of this document is to inform the Members of the DIMESA on the progress in the field of land cover/use statistics. This document includes three issues: (a) progress of the LUCAS 2012 survey; (b) conclusions from the Advisory Group Meeting on Land Cover/Use Statistics held on 16 February 2012 and (c) launch of grants for the Member States. 1. LUCAS 2012 SURVEY The LUCAS 2012 survey is organised in all 27 EU countries in spring-summer 2012. It covers 270.411 points (see Annex 1). LUCAS 2012 is co-ordinated by Eurostat and co-funded by Eurostat, DG ENTR, DG ENV and DG CLIMA. The kick-off meeting for the LUCAS 2012 survey was organised in Luxembourg in November 2011. The practical preparations started immediately after. The contractors are collecting necessary data for the Ground Documents (orthophotos and digital maps). Eurostat organised the Project Managers training workshop in Lisbon at the end of January. The recruitment of LUCAS supervisors and surveyors is underway. The LUCAS documentation has been finalised and a new 2012 release of the DMT (Data Management Tool) is ready. The field work has started in the southern Europe (Spain, Portugal, Greece, Italy) by the time of the release of this documents. The expected starting dates of the LUCAS survey are presented in Table 1. Table 1. Expected starting dates of the LUCAS 2012 field work. Country Planned start of the survey Country Planned start of the survey Austria 07/05/2012 Latvia 01/05/2012 Belgium 30/04/2012 Lithuania 01/05/2012 Bulgaria 01/05/2012 Luxembourg 30/04/2012 Cyprus 02/04/2012 Malta 07/05/2012 Czech Republic 23/04/2012 Netherlands 14/05/2012 Denmark 14/05/2012 Poland 07/05/2012 Estonia 10/05/2012 Portugal 02/04/2012 Finland 29/05/2012 Romania 14/05/2012 France 30/04/2012 Slovakia 23/04/2012 Germany 05/05/2012 Slovenia 14/05/2012 Greece 02/04/2012 Spain 12/03/2012 Hungary 19/04/2012 Sweden 14/05/2012 Ireland 07/05/2012 UK 23/04/2012 Italy 16/04/2012 2

Eurostat has a detailed quality control scheme in place for the LUCAS survey. The main components are: incorporation of user needs into the survey scheme correctly drawn sample (statistically sound and taking into account the accessibility of points) quality of technical documents and clearness of instructions the quality of the ground documents (as recent and as good quality of orthophotos as possible) educational background and experience of the recruited supervisors and surveyors training of the staff use of the DMT in-built quality control checks rapid data flow from the field to the quality control adequate checks on all points in the office (contractor level) constantly up-dated frequently asked questions distributed to all surveyors and other staff working in LUCAS. follow-up visits organised after the start of the field work. external quality control quality controls implemented in Eurostat Eurostat follows up closely all aspects of the survey in order to make sure that that all quality criteria are followed. Eurostat expects the field data collection to be completed by end of September 2012. The external quality control should be finalised at the end of November. Eurostat implements data checks at the whole data set level after the reception of the complete data set. The data release is expected in the Q2 of 2013. 2. Advisory Group Meeting on 16 February Eurostat set up an Advisory Group on land cover/use statistics in the autumn 2010. The main objective of the group is to give advice to Eurostat on land cover/use statistics strategy. It is composed of the representatives of the main land cover/use statistics users at European level, FAO and national land cover/use experts. The Advisory Group had it second meeting on 16 February 2012. The objectives of the meeting were the following: - identify the needs for land use/cover statistics both on a national and international level - identify data sources for land cover/use statistics and in-situ data - identify means for harmonising similar national surveys - identify building blocks for a land use/cover data architecture that addresses users' needs co-operation with the MS evolution of LUCAS taking into account that it 3

- shouldn't duplicate other information sources - should be aligned with Eurostat's objectives - should permit (human and financial) resource optimization Main conclusions from the meeting The data user DGs stated that LUCAS-type of LC/LU statistics and in-situ data are needed for many purposes: They respond to EU biodiversity policy, Birds and Habitats Directives monitoring, LULUCF accounting needs, land degradation and desertification monitoring linked to United Nations' convention to combat desertification and forest monitoring They provide information for agro-environmental indicators. They have proven their usefulness as a source of in-situ data for soil and GMES linked activities (soil and land monitoring). They are important to the research community. They are often also used indirectly to improve the accuracy and quality of other data sources (e.g. crop masks). Some national experts questioned the usefulness of the LUCAS data for biodiversity and soil monitoring. Firstly they shouldn't be considered as statistical tasks and secondly biodiversity and soil monitoring and reporting are national tasks implemented by the Member States. The attention was also drawn to the fact that many of the data needs can be met by other European datasets e.g. Farm Structure Survey. LUCAS should be used only for welltargeted and legitimate in-situ data collection needs and not for issues which are better covered by the national data. As a conclusion of this point it was stated that a more detailed in-depth data needs assessment has to be made by the data users. The needs assessment should also integrate priority and cost evaluation. Eurostat will organise bilateral meetings with the EC services for this purpose. The second task is to do a data inventory at both national and European level to see which existing data sets meet these needs and if new data collection activities need to be planned. The harmonisation of definitions and classifications will be of crucial importance for the future work on land cover/use statistics. The LUCAS classification will be compared with the INSPIRE and SEEA classifications and eventually harmonized with them as much as possible. Eurostat will circulate as soon as possible a proposal for the new Eurostat (LUCAS) classification for comments. For the Member States it is important to document well the existing definitions and classifications in the metadata. Otherwise the harmonisation work is impossible. As a result of the existing national data analysis it can be stated that land cover is well covered by national data in most countries, and that most countries have detailed data on agricultural and industrial land use but not on all land use classes. Thus land cover seems to be the most promising starting point for collecting national data feeding into the European land cover statistics. Land use data and other in-situ data are clearly more challenging. Even for land cover data it is clear that the Member States have to do a lot of internal co-ordination and governance work to create a coherent database linking existing national sources. 4

The future strategy for the European land cover/use statistics and in-situ data collection will: aim at producing, collecting and disseminating harmonised, high quality data, in-situ data and statistics on land cover/use needed by the Commission services in the most efficient way, be built on as much as possible on the existing European (LUCAS, CORINE, FSS, forest & crop statistics etc.) and national datasets, have a pre-defined data collection schedule, be flexible to meet emerging needs. The data users reiterated the need for harmonised land cover/use and LC/LU change statistics and in-situ data on various environmental phenomenon (biodiversity, soil, erosion, irrigation, climate change) and data suitable for supporting the production and validation of other LC/LU products based on Remote Sensing (such as CORINE). This data should be truly harmonised and available according to a pre-defined schedule synchronised with data needs and other data collections activities (mainly GMES). LUCAS with specific modules is a preferred source of this information. The future evolution of LUCAS has to be put into a 10 year strategic plan, with clear data needs related objectives, schedule and funding schemes. Several Member States restated the availability of national data and other European data sources (LPIS, FSS, CORINE, crop statistics) and the need to investigate more in detail which of the data needs can be fulfilled with these other data sources. Eurostat informed the Member States that it will launch in spring 2012 grants targeted at the land cover/use statistics harmonisation and data delivery to Eurostat. Some Member states experts expressed concerns about the short time to prepare them. As Eurostat deems the strengthening of the co-operation with the Member States essentially important, Eurostat progresses with the grants as planned making sure that sufficient time for the preparation of the proposals and the signature of the agreements is allowed. 3. GRANTS FOR THE MEMBER STATES As the Member States have pointed out on many fora (Committee, Working Group and Advisory Group Meetings) that high quality national land cover and use data exist, Eurostat wants to encourage the delivery of harmonised and quality approved statistics to Eurostat by giving grants.. The budget provision is 1,000,000. The aim of the grants is to facilitate the co-operation between Eurostat and the Member States by: a) allowing the Member States to harmonise the land cover/use statistics to European common classifications and to deliver them to Eurostat. b) allowing the Member States to develop strategies and concrete plans on how national field data collection activities (e.g. forest inventories, area frame surveys or other type of in-situ environmental surveys) can be integrated with the future LUCAS surveys. 5

The specific objectives of the part a) are: (1) Examining and comparing existing data sources for land cover and land use at national, NUTS2, NUTS 3 and LAU levels, and determining their compliance with the given classification and precision. Eurostat encourages the usage of all available data sources in an efficient way (statistical data, in-situ data, mapping based GIS-data, register data, other administrative data, etc.); (2) Documenting methodologies and technical solutions for calculating total areas for each class of the given nomenclature at the several geographical levels in a format of a methodological report; (3) Calculating total areas for each class of the land cover and/or land use classification at the most detailed admnistrative level (minimum NUTS 2) for a point in time within the 2009-2012 period; (4) Carrying out pilot data collection, where appropriate; (5) Providing quality report for the delivered data specifying the used quality assurance scheme and statistical precision of the data (e.g. CV); (6) Reporting the feasibility and sustainability of possible subsequent data deliveries (update cycle). Part b) consists of making a feasibility study and delivering a concrete plan on how to integrate a national in-situ survey implementation with the LUCAS requirements More specifically, the operational objectives are: (1) Analysing a national in-situ data collection survey (objectives, methodology, schedule, organisation, data flow, quality assurance, results): (2) Making a feasibility study how a national in-situ data collection survey could be integrated with a LUCAS survey (methodology, schedule, organisation, quality assurance, data flow,). (3) Making a practical proposal on how to implement the next national in-situ data collection integrated with the LUCAS survey requirements : (4) Making a cost estimate for running a national survey integrated with the LUCAS requirements; The Member States can apply for a grant covering part a) or part b) or both. The grants will run for 18 months for part a) and 12 months for part b). The grants will be published in spring 2012. 6

Annex 1. LUCAS 2012 point distribution per country Country Number of points Country Number of points AT 6474 IT 21019 BE 2448 LT 3889 BG 6643 LU 215 CY 1442 LV 4421 CZ 5515 MT 79 DE 24941 NL 2241 DK 3465 PL 21806 EE 2202 PT 7338 ES 35378 RO 14281 FI 13483 SE 22431 FR 38343 SI 1618 GR 7893 SK 2452 HU 4640 UK 12265 IE 3489 Total EU27 270411 7