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The Use of the Land-Cover Classification System in Eastern European Countries: Experiences, Lessons Learnt and the Way Forward

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Land Use and Land Cover Mapping in Europe

Part of the book series: Remote Sensing and Digital Image Processing ((RDIP,volume 18))

Abstract

Land cover and land use form baseline data in order to understand environmental changes in space and time and to make informed decisions. Categorisations assist in the communication of ideas and concepts related to land cover and land use. Few categorisations take formal shape or any formal algorithm, even fewer are standardised. The Land-Cover Classification System (LCCS) is a formal system with a parameterised approach, i.e. the parameters used to define categories and classes are explicit.

LCCS has been used in a number of Eastern European countries in the period of transition when spatial developments were rapid as a consequence of the land reform choices made in these countries. With time LCCS was applied not only for the countrywide inventory of land-cover/use types but for dedicated studies at detailed level in specific areas. LCCS has the advantage that the same concept is used to generate more detailed classes and these have an intrinsic hierarchical order. For monitoring and evaluation purposes the parameterised approach furnishes the parameters to be measured over time. Thus, the applications in which LCCS was used became more refined with the increasing experience and capabilities in the countries.

The experiences in Eastern Europe contributed to a certain extent to the fact that LCCS is now being used at European level in the Land Parcel Identification System Quality Assessment. Furthermore, the fundamental structure of LCCS became the ISO standard structure for classification systems in 2009 and LCCS was further used as the basis for the Land Cover Meta Language established as an ISO standard in 2012.

Since 2000 the image analysis in remote sensing made a move towards an object-oriented approach, databases became object-oriented, but what about categorisation? The way forward is to develop a new generation of categorisation systems adopting the Parametric Object-Oriented Model because this allows unprecedented flexibility and capability in the design and use of very complex information systems that are needed to understand the multifaceted environmental changes.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    On 1 January 2007 Bulgaria and Romania joined the EU.

  2. 2.

    The authors were involved in LCCS and the projects described in various ways: Louisa J.M. Jansen is author of LCCS and she was involved in the projects in Albania and Romania; Alexandru Badea worked in the projects in Azerbaijan, Romania and Moldova; Pavel Milenov worked in the projects in Bulgaria and Romania and used LCCS at JRC; Cristian Moise was involved in the projects in Romania; Vassil Vassilev and Ljudmila Milenova were involved in the projects in Bulgaria; Wim Devos uses LCCS at JRC.

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Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge Carlo Travaglia, former Technical Officer at the FAO Environment and Natural Resources Service, who was the driving force for initiating and managing the projects in Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Moldova and Romania.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Environment and Land Administration, Arnhem, The Netherlands

    Louisa J. M. Jansen (Senior Advisor Agriculture)

  2. Romanian Space Agency, 21-25 Mendeleev st., sector 1, 010362, Bucharest, Romania

    Alexandru Badea & Cristian Moise

  3. Romanian Centre for Remote Sensing Applications in Agriculture (CRUTA), 35-37, Sos. Oltenitei, sector 4, 041293, Bucharest, Romania

    Alexandru Badea

  4. MARS Unit, Institute for Environment and Sustainability, European Commission Joint Research Centre, Via E. Fermi 2749, 21027, Ispra, VA, Italy

    Pavel Milenov & Wim Devos

  5. Remote Sensing Application Center (ReSAC), 61 Tzar Assen Str., fl. 2, 1463, Sofia, Bulgaria

    Vassil Vassilev & Ljudmila Milenova

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  1. Louisa J. M. Jansen
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  2. Alexandru Badea
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  3. Pavel Milenov
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  7. Wim Devos
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Correspondence to Louisa J. M. Jansen .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Information Technologies Institute, Center for Research and Technology Hellas, Thessaloniki, Greece

    Ioannis Manakos

  2. Department of Geography, University of Erlangen-Nürnberg, Erlangen, Germany

    Matthias Braun

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Jansen, L.J.M. et al. (2014). The Use of the Land-Cover Classification System in Eastern European Countries: Experiences, Lessons Learnt and the Way Forward. In: Manakos, I., Braun, M. (eds) Land Use and Land Cover Mapping in Europe. Remote Sensing and Digital Image Processing, vol 18. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7969-3_19

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