European Landscape Dynamics

Four unique pan-European CORINE Land Cover datasets―CLC1990, CLC2000, CLC2006, and CLC2012― and three datasets concerning changes between 1990 and 2012 have presented the first-ever opportunity to observe the European landscape by means of land cover and its change. This book brings together all these datasets to demonstrate the methods of identification, analysis and assessment of the European land cover and its changes that took place during the intervals of 1990–2000, 2000–2006, and 2006–2012. It provides examples in which CLC data plays a role in offering solutions to European environmental problems such as the monitoring of urban dynamics, land fragmentation, ecosystems mapping and assessment, and high nature value farmland characteristics.

Existing environmental problems require new approaches, and European Landscape Dynamics: CORINE Land Cover Data indicates a set of outlooks for CLC data generation that produce more detailed levels of analysis and bottom-up approaches while addressing the relationship of CLC data to the Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe (INSPIRE). It also discusses the future of CLC data generation. A valuable resource of up-to-date information, it is useful to professionals such as scientists, territorial planners, and environmentalists as well as students of geosciences and all those who are interested in cognition of the European landscape, its changes and development.

Dr. Jan Feranec graduated in a physical and regional geography. He is a scientific worker at the Institute of Geography, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava, Slovak Republic, where he held the post of director from July 2002 to June 2006 and currently serves as the supervisor of PhD studies in physical geography, geoecology and geoinformatics. Dr. Feranec was appointed Associate Professor at the Comenius University in Bratislava in 1996. He is also the vice-chair of the current Commission on Sensor-Driven Mapping International Cartographic Association. His research interests include land cover/use and its change mapping by satellite images, urban areas analysis by VHR images and methodology of remote sensing data interpretation and landscape assessment as well as identification and analysis of abandonment of arable lands and grasslands. He has been involved in international projects such as the Czechoslovakia–Canada Cooperation in Remote Sensing, Ecotons of the Rivers Danube and Morava, MERA, Phare Topic Link on Land Cover, BIOPRESS, Urban Atlas (2009–2011 and 2013–2016). From 2001–2009 he was a member of the central CORINE Land Cover Projects (CLC1990 and CLC2000) Technical Team.

Tomas Soukup is project manager and a senior consultant in remote sensing, GIS and land monitoring for GISAT s.r.o. company, located in Prague, Czech Republic. Graduated in geodesy, cartography, GIS and remote sensing, he has worked extensively over the last 20 years on utilization of the Earth observation (EO) data for various practical applications in the land monitoring context including urban studies, regional planning, environmental assessment or emergency response and security support. Since the CORINE Land Cover 1990 mapping campaign in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, he collaborates with the European Environmental Agency (EEA) in the framework of European Topic Centers (PTL/LC, ETC/TE, ETC/LUSI, ETC/SIA. ETC/ULS) and also as member of the central CLC Technical Team. In the last decade, he has been active in numerous application projects for developing, testing and providing European GMES/Copernicus service capacities in land monitoring. He works with the National Reference Centre Land Cover in EIONET, a partnership network of the European Environment Agency, and he is also a member of the EEA EIONET Action Group on Land Monitoring in Europe supporting implementation of Copernicus services.

Drs. Gerard Hazeu is a physical geographer working at Alterra–Wageningen University and Research Centre, where he is a GIS & remote sensing researcher/project leader with specific interest in land cover/use change, agriculture and biodiversity issues. Since 2001, he has been involved in several European land monitoring projects. He is responsible for the CORINE Land Cover updates in the Netherlands (2000, 2006 and 2012). He has worked closely with the EEA in the European Topic Centres. He is also responsible for the Dutch national land cover database, which gives an actual representation of the national land cover every four years. He represents the Netherlands as the National Reference Centre Land Cover in EIONET. Currently, he is involved in several EIONET Action Group on Land Monitoring in Europe contracts (EAGLE), drafting the framework for future land cover monitoring in Europe. He also supports the implementation of the Copernicus land continental and local component by providing service specifications and ensuring continuity of the existing GIO land services.

Gabriel Jaffrain graduated in geography, environment, spatial planning by remote sensing and biology of organisms and ecology from the University of Rennes. He has been working as a project manager and a land cover/land use expert at IGN France International for more than 20 years and is now the referent for the environmental issues and land cover mapping topics. He is involved in numerous land occupation and environment projects in France and around the world. He has been involved with the CORINE Land Cover projects since 1994, and since 2001 has been a member of the technical team of the European Topic Centre ETC/TE, ETC/LUSI, ETC/SIA within the European Environmental Agency. Today he is involved in the production of land cover accounting in the context of SEEA Part2 on ecosystem capital accounting. He is responsible for quality insurance/quality control on mapping tropical forests and forest change through the REDD+ international program in the Congo basin and is also involved with Europe’s Urban Atlas and Copernicus project as a supervisor.