Landscapes of Europe (LANMAP2)

Introduction
At the Sofia conference in 1995, the ministers for the Environment decided on the Pan-European Biological and Landscape Diversity and Strategy (PEBLDS) to enhance the importance of nature and landscapes (Council of Europe, UNEP and ECNC. 1.996). From the discussions in Sofia 11 action-themes were defined. Action-theme 4 contained subjects on amongst others; establishment of a Pan- European Landscape Map, development of landscape assessment criteria and a SWOT analysis of European landscapes (Vervloet & Spek, 2002). Therefore an initiative started at Alterra in 2002 to produce a pan-European landscape classification, giving the fact that existing approaches fall short of using state-of-the-art technology. The European landscape map should provide a practical and easy tool for European policy implementation. Important applications are integrated environmental assessment, monitoring and reporting, and especially indicator-based approaches such as now being used in the SENSOR project.

Methodological approach
In a first step, a conceptional framework (Mücher et al., 2003) has been developed for both the development of an Environmental Classification (Metzger et al., 2005) as well as for a European Landscape Classification (Mücher et al., 2006). After formulating user requirements and possible target groups, a critical review of the required and existing European environmental data sets has been undertaken. The following key data sources were selected for the delineation of the major physiographic landscape units:

• Climate (EnS and BRME)
• Altitude (GTOPO3O)
• Parent material (ESDB, FAQ soil map)
• Land use / Land cover (CORINE, PELCOM and GLC2000 land cover)

Functional hierarchy

To cover these four themes various data sources had to be integrated to obtain a pan-European coverage. In principle the most accurate and detailed data sets were being used. Since a detailed geomorphology map of Europe did not exist, information on topography and parent material were selected as an adequate substitute. The above mentioned four core data sets formed the basis for the identification of the landscape units. For the spatial identification of the landscape mapping units a segmentation methodology has been used. The software package eCognition was used for the segmentation process. Ecognition is an object-oriented image classification software for multiscale analysis of Earth Observation data of all kinds. Specific landscape types such as intertidal flats and urban agglomerations have been identified purely on the basis of land cover information.


RGB color composition of altitude, parent material and land use and the resulting segmentation wit eCognition (in yellow)

Product
The final product, LANMAP2. is a Pan-European Landscape Database at a scale of 1:2M. The European landscape classification covers pan-Europe entirely from Iceland in the Northwest to Azerbaijan in the Southeast and from Gibraltar in the Southwest to Nova Zembla in the Northeast. LANMAP2 covers an area of approximately 11 million square kilometers. This is more than three times the area covered by LANMAP1. LANMAP2 is a hierarchical classification and has 350 landscape types at its lowest level (level 4), including intertidal flats, urban agglomerations and water bodies. At this level there are more than 14.000 mapping units with an average size of 774 km2. The smallest mapping unit is 11km2 and the largest unit is 739.000 km2. The highest level of the classification is determined by climate and has only 8 classes. The second level is determined by climate and altitude and has 31 classes. The third level, determined by climate, altitude and parent material has already 76 classes. In the figure below a detail is given of LANMAP2 for a part of England, the Netherlands, Belgium, France and Germany.

Applications
The European Landscape Map — LANMAP2 - provided many application fields for
many European projects and policy initiatives, such as:

• As a framework for further landscape character assessment in the European project ELCAI (The European Landscape Character Initiative);
• For Environmental Risk Indicators for Agriculture within the ENRISK project, which has a component on landscape assessment;
• As an integration framework for pressures on biodiversity (BIOPRESS);
• For environmental profiling within the EU Integrated Project SENSOR;
• For the European Landscape Convention: identification of trans-frontier landscapes as well as everyday landscapes under the convention;
• For OECD Agri-environmental landscape indicator process: identification of suitable landscape reference areas for policy-oriented indicators.

Forthcoming activities

• Description of the landscape types.
• Filling the database with many attributes on other biophysical attributes, next to land use history and patterns.
• Publications

Reference

• Mücher, C.A., Klijn, J.A., Wascher, D.M., Schaminée, J.H.J. (2010). A new European Landscape Classification (LANMAP): A transparent, flexible and user-oriented methodology to distinguish landscapes. Ecological Indicators. 10:87-103.
   
• Metzger M.J., Bunce R.G.H, Jongman R.H.G, Mücher C.A. & Watkins J.W. (2005). A climatic stratification of the environment of Europe. Global Ecology and Biogeography 14: 549-563. 
   
• Mücher, C.A., R.G.H. Bunce, R.H.G. Jongman, J.A. Klijn, A. Koomen, M.J. Metzger & D.M. Wascher (2003). Identification and Characterisation of Environments and Landscapes in Europe. Alterra rapport 832, Alterra, Wageningen.