Abstract
Land cover dynamics information plays an important role in environmental research and related studies. We use the 500m NASA MODIS land cover dataset for the European Union (EU28) to calculate (a) land cover share trends on an annual temporal increment from 2001 to 2011 and (b) land cover accounts from 2001 to 2011. Raster products are firstly mosaicked to produce a single image per year, covering the study area. Reclassification for each final annual product follows to convert the original 17 IGBP MODIS classes into 7 simpler classes of broader interest. Zonal statistics are used to calculate the number of land cover pixels per class, per country, per year. Further calculations create land account tables revealing land cover trends during 2001 through 2011. Results show that for the 2001 through 2011 period forests and cropland dominated EU28, covering almost 70% of the total area. Forest has an increasing trend, with an annual change rate of 0,60%, while cropland has a negative rate of annual change (-0, 46%). On average, grassland covers approximately 21% of EU28. A closer look reveals that despite the relatively stable overall counts, grassland has experienced high turnover. Almost half (40%) of grassland original stock changed to other land cover classes during 2001 through 2011. At the same time, there was a large conversion to grassland from other land cover classes thus keeping a balance in the overall share. Our analysis provides useful information for environmental assessments in order to better frame policies for a sustainable future.