CRC Press European Landscape Dynamics: CORINE Land Cover Data

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. Review "A timely publication, this resource analyzes and presents patterns of land cover and land cover change across Europe, making the most of four steps in CORINE mapping since 1990. Providing comparable datasets, CORINE enables assessments of differences in land cover change across the continent and in so doing informs policy development, as illustrated in some of the case studies provided. Future versions of this publication will be worth waiting for."―Gearóid Ó Riain, Compass Informatics Ltd. London, UK "The innovative methods developed and used in this project not only helped improve our scientific understanding of land cover dynamics of Europe but also proved to be an excellent resource for land change scientists and practitioners all over the world."―Chandra Giri, United States Geological Survey; Duke University; author of Remote Sensing of Land Use and Land Cover: Principles and Applications"Here, a reader can find in one publication the CLC methodical approaches, concepts of using satellite data, and related modern tools for data processing, including geoinformation systems. Thanks to this team of experienced authors and editors, this work provides a detailed comprehensive methodology of building databases as well as analyses and assessments of CLC outputs."―Jan Kolar, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic "…it is not easy to grasp the state and change of land use/cover accurately, and the difficulty increases as one tries to study larger areas covering multiple countries or cultural regions, or to look at the change in a longer time range. It has been an exciting but difficult challenge to pursue in such complex region as Europe, but CORINE has done it beautifully with professional scrutiny. This book shows its achievement convincingly, with many informative original maps, diagrams and tables. It is hoped that this book is read widely, and gives clues to those who wish to develop similar land use/cover change d About the Author 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 Ass