CORINE Land Cover

Short description

In 1985 the 'Coordination of Information on the Environment' (CORINE) programme was initiated by the European Commission. It aimed at collecting environmental information on high priority topics for the European Union (air, water, soil, land cover, coastal erosion, biotopes, etc.). Since 1994, the established databases and programmes are managed by the European Environment Agency (EEA).The CORINE Land Cover (CLC) inventory is a vector-based dataset that consists of 44 land cover and land use classes (Table 2) derived from a series of satellite missions since it was first established (Table 1).Table 1: The evolution of CORINE Land Cover (source).

	CLC1990	CLC2000	CLC2006	CLC2012	CLC2018
Satellite data	Landsat-5 MSS/TM single date	Landsat-7 ETM single date	SPOT-4/5 and IRS P6 LISS III dual date	IRS P6 LISS III and RapidEye dual date	Sentinel-2 and Landsat-8 for gap filling
Time consistency	1986-1998	2000 +/- 1 year	2006+/- 1 year	2011-2012	2017-2018
Geometric accuracy, satellite data	≤ 50 m	≤ 25 m	≤ 25 m	≤ 25 m	≤ 10 m (Sentinel-2)
Min. mapping unit/width	25 ha / 100m	25 ha / 100m	25 ha / 100m	25 ha / 100m	25 ha / 100 m
Geometric accuracy, CLC	100 m	better than 100 m	better than 100 m	better than 100 m	better than 100 m
Geometric accuracy, CLCThematic accuracy, CLC	≥ 85% (probably not achieved)	≥ 85% (achieved) [13]	≥ 85%	≥ 85% (probably achieved)	≥ 85%
Change mapping (CHA)	not implemented	boundary displacement min. 100 m; change area for existing polygons ≥ 5 ha; for isolated changes ≥ 25 ha	boundary displacement min.100 m; all changes ≥ 5 ha are to be mapped	boundary displacement min.100 m; all changes ≥ 5 ha are to be mapped	boundary displacement min.100 m; all changes ≥ 5 ha are to be mapped
Thematic accuracy, CHA	-	not checked	≥ 85% (achieved)	≥ 85%	≥ 85%
Production time	10 years	4 years	3 years	2 years	1.5 years
Documentation	incomplete metadata	standard metadata	standard metadata	standard metadata	standard metadata
Access to the data (CLC, CHA)	unclear dissemination policy	dissemination policy agreed from the start	free access for all users	free access for all users	free access for all users
Number of countries involved	26 (27 with late implementation)	30 (35 with late implementation)	38	39	39

Band information

The band values correspond to a land cover and land use classification scheme with class values ranging from 0 to 44. Please see the nomenclature and coloring scheme in the table below. For more details about the classes, please see the official CORINE Land Cover nomenclature guidelines or the illustrated nomenclature guidelines document.A visualisation script can be found in our custom scripts repository.Table 2: CORINE Land Cover nomenclature and colouring scheme.

Value	Color Code	Label
1	#e6004d	111 - Continuous urban fabric
2	#ff0000	112 - Discontinuous urban fabric
3	#cc4df2	121 - Industrial or commercial units
4	#cc0000	122 - Road and rail networks and associated land
5	#e6cccc	123 - Port areas
6	#e6cce6	124 - Airports
7	#a600cc	131 - Mineral extraction sites
8	#a64d00	132 - Dump sites
9	#ff4dff	133 - Construction sites
10	#ffa6ff	141 - Green urban areas
11	#ffe6ff	142 - Sport and leisure facilities
12	#ffffa8	211 - Non-irrigated arable land
13	#ffff00	212 - Permanently irrigated land
14	#e6e600	213 - Rice fields
15	#e68000	221 - Vineyards
16	#f2a64d	222 - Fruit trees and berry plantations
17	#e6a600	223 - Olive groves
18	#e6e64d	231 - Pastures
19	#ffe6a6	241 - Annual crops associated with permanent crops
20	#ffe64d	242 - Complex cultivation patterns
21	#e6cc4d	243 - Land principally occupied by agriculture with significant areas of natural vegetation
22	#f2cca6	244 - Agro-forestry areas
23	#80ff00	311 - Broad-leaved forest
24	#00a600	312 - Coniferous forest
25	#4dff00	313 - Mixed forest
26	#ccf24d	321 - Natural grasslands
27	#a6ff80	322 - Moors and heathland
28	#a6e64d	323 - Sclerophyllous vegetation
29	#a6f200	324 - Transitional woodland-shrub
30	#e6e6e6	331 - Beaches - dunes - sands
31	#cccccc	332 - Bare rocks
32	#ccffcc	333 - Sparsely vegetated areas
33	#000000	334 - Burnt areas
34	#a6e6cc	335 - Glaciers and perpetual snow
35	#a6a6ff	411 - Inland marshes
36	#4d4dff	412 - Peat bogs
37	#ccccff	421 - Salt marshes
38	#e6e6ff	422 - Salines
39	#a6a6e6	423 - Intertidal flats
40	#00ccf2	511 - Water courses
41	#80f2e6	512 - Water bodies
42	#00ffa6	521 - Coastal lagoons
43	#a6ffe6	522 - Estuaries
44	#e6f2ff	523 - Sea and ocean
48	#ffffff	999 - NODATA

More information

CORINE Land Cover dataset over the Alps in EO Browser.

CORINE Land Cover dataset over Guadeloupe and Martinique, two French DOMs, in EO Browser.