Application of CORINE land cover methodology to the UK - Some issues raised from Northern Ireland

To date, Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom to adopt the CORINE land cover approach-as part of an all-Ireland project for the EC. The land cover classification of the island, derived from Landsat TM imagery, at a scale of 1:100,000 is held in an ARC/INFO database. The EC intend that the land cover database should inform their environment and regional development policies and should be widely available. The project was led by the Ordnance Survey of Ireland, organized in several phases and subcontracted to co-ordinated teams drawn from government and universities. The project is outlined and its successes and problems discussed, for example (i) a Mediterranean bias in the CORINE nomenclature, (ii) lack of clear rules to define classes, (iii) the need for Level 4 subdivisions to avoid broad generalizations (pasture and peat bog) and (iv) lack of mixed natural vegetation classes. These problems are discussed through examining the application of CORINE classes to agriculture, forest and semi-natural areas, and wetlands in the north of Ireland.