Harmonizing European land cover maps.

Abstract

Several bodies under the Convention have addressed the issue of defining a common land cover dataset during 2003, inter alia the TFIAM (EB.AIR.GE.1/2003/4), the EB and the ICP M&M (Final draft minutes of the taskforce meeting 2003). It was stressed that the land cover data should be the same for all steps in air pollution assessment work and working bodies under the Convention and that it should be freely and easily available. In order to harmonize the land cover maps, the currently used European maps are made compatible with regard to land cover classes and coordinate system, and then compared to each other. Results of the comparison have been presented to an ad-hoc expert meeting on harmonization of land cover information for applications under the Convention on LRTAP by CCE, CIAM, MSC-W and SEI. This meeting recommended a new dataset which merges CORINE data and SEI data to be produced.