The LaCoast Atlas: Land Cover changes in European Coastal Zones

Con ruolo di responsabile scientifico conduce l'analisi (parte 2) affidata al GIS_LAB sulla base dei dati da satellite della fascia costiera Europea del Centro Comune di Ricerca di Ispra. Informazioni idonee sia sullo stato delle coste che sull’impatto delle attività umane sono un requisito fondamentale per la gestione sostenibile delle aree costiere. La valutazione dei cambiamenti e delle coste Europee dell’uso del suolo negli ultimi decenni e’ importante per comprendere ed evidenziare i processi di trasformazione e per prevedere scenari futuri. A tale scopo una base dati delle coste UE ha consentito di effettuare statistiche affidabili e analisi spaziali GIS per rappresentare tali fenomeni. Appropriate information about both the state of the coastal zones and the impact of human activities is a fundamental requisite for a sustainable maangement of the costal areas. The assessmente of the land cover/land use changes during the pst few decades in European coastal zones is important for understanding of the underlying process of trasformation and for the forecasting of scenarios of change. To identify changes in land cover consistent in the time dimention, and the maintenance of an harmonised, standardised and georeferenced database is foundamental. Such a database must provide reliabel statistics and allow spatial representation of information and phenomena. LaCoast represent a first step in the assessment of land use and land cover changes in the European coastal zones. Based on this information and integration other data on protection of nature, socio-economic and administrative data, indicators relavant for coastal zones mananagement can be derived to be able to forecasting trends and land use and land use change in the future, historical land use and land cover are important to be constructed on harmonised and consistent georeferenced data base. A land cover database with time as an indispensable dimention is a basic for integrated spatial analysis of policies impact. The aim of this project was to estimate quantitative changes of land cover and/or land use in European coastal zones especially due to human activities. It uses the Corine Land Cover data base over coastal zones. This project was carried out by the Agricultural Information Systems Unit (AIS) of the Space Applications Institute (SAI) of the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of Ispra (Italy). It is funded through the Centre for Earth Observation (CEO) programme Workpackage AS3200 (Application projects in support of the services of the Commission). It was developed in close collaboration with users and especially the DGXI (Environment, Nuclear Safety and Civil protection) and the European Environment Agency (EEA). This project observed the Europe of the 15 member states but t also has been encouraging other countries to carry out this study.