CROatian Land Information System

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

BACKGROUND

Land use, land-use change, and forestry (LULUCF) reporting under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) provides a greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory, covering both emissions and removals. The EU Regulation on the inclusion of GHG emissions and removals from LULUCF into the 2030 climate and energy framework was adopted in May 2018. It sets a binding commitment for each Member State to ensure that accounted emissions from land use are compensated by an equivalent removal of CO from the atmosphere. At present, however, Croatia lacks a harmonised land monitoring data model capable of integrating Land Cover (LC), Land Use (LU) and land management data from different data sources. Therefore, there is a need for a new model designed to integrate existing LC and LU information systems and data in Croatia, in combination with freely-available services and upcoming multi-temporal observations from the European COPERNICUS Sentinel-2 missions. This will be able to trace back and identify past LC and LU changes. When defining the data model, the conclusions of the FP7 HELM (Harmonised European Land Monitoring) project and the EAGLE concept on land monitoring can be followed.

OBJECTIVES

The main aim of the LIFE CROLIS project is to develop and implement a harmonised land monitoring data model that enables the integration and processing of Land Cover (LC), Land Use (LU) and land management data from different data sources, and its use for a variety of purposes. This will be the first multi-scale and multi-purpose land information monitoring system in Croatia. The consistent time series with semantically adapted LC classes (according to the main nomenclature of LULUCF), which can be traced back regarding LC changes to the 1970s, is the key element of the project. The project will provide a robust basis for planning and implementing GHG mitigation actions in the land use sector.

The LIFE CROLIS model will be further designed to support Croatia in fulfilling future international and European targets such as the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and EU regulations for rural development, conservation of natural habitats, and many more.

The project shall be implemented in close partnership with the Croatian land monitoring community that includes all stakeholders involved in monitoring LC and LU changes. The long-term aim is to enable and secure a permanent CROLIS implementation by national authorities, decision makers, experts, NGOs and others.

RESULTS

Expected results:

Harmonised data from different regional and national land monitoring activities;

More detailed spatial information on the environment;

Identification of relations, trends and impacts between LU, LC and other parameters like GHG emissions/removals from LULUCF, soil conditions, climate change indicators, land management indicators/drivers;

Identification of options for improved GHG mitigation in the LULUCF sector;

Avoidance of duplication of work / data production, maintenance, dissemination;

Generation of a time series of LC changes;

Use of the data in a moreflexible way for a wide range of assessments;

Stepwise integration of different data sets from governmental institutions as needed or requested;

Improved collaboration between partner institutions;

The basis provided for smooth cooperation between land monitoring and statistical agencies and their subordinated institutions;

Croatian authorities better able to follow European developments, and the efforts for international reporting obligations minimised.