National Landuse Landcover Monitoring in Ireland

摘要

National Landuse & Landcover (LULC) datasets provide valuable information to the scientific, environmental and planning sectors. Their value is being recognised more and more as a piece of key national data infrastructure, providing important baseline and change data for national assessment and reporting responsibilities such as Kyoto emissions accounting and WFD based risk assessments. -Presently there is a gap in information in Ireland with regards national scale LULC data. There is currently no dedicated national LULC dataset and users must rely on the pan-European EEA landcover dataseries — CORINE (Co-ORdinated INformation on the Environment) - to provide national LULC data. The Irish Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been working to address the data gap in this area by firstly improving the quality and reliability of the CORINE dataset but principally and ultimately developing a separate national landcover dataset. During the production of the CORINE2012 dataset for Ireland, the dataset has been revised and improved by integrating national agriculture and forestry datasets in the data production stage alongside object-oriented based Remote Sensing of EO imagery to produce a higher quality dataset in a more efficient manner. The EPA has also been working with other national agencies to develop and initiate a national high resolution LULC mapping programme. The proposed dataseries will utilise Ordnance Survey Ireland's new national spatial database - Prime2 - which provides a seamless vector layer of all buildings, land parcels and boundaries in the country. A pilot project successfully mapped Co Roscommon using again a hybrid system of data-integration and object-oriented image analysis to populate the individual parcels with LULC information. Further research is planned to look at large un-enclosed parcel units, such as uplands and peatlands which need to be further sub-segmented and classified due to their expansive nature. Aswell as these core technical issues, significant policy and funding obstacles also need to be addressed to make their proposal a reality in a time of very limited resources.