DeCOVER 2 Services to Support Land Cover Data Update, NATURA 2000 Monitoring and Cross Compliance using RapidEYE and TerraSAR-X

DeCOVER serves as a national extension of the European Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) initiative. It was initiated to provide land cover information adapted to German user needs and to support existing land cover / land use data systems at regional, national and international level using innovative remote sensing and data modelling techniques. The uses requirement studies of DeCOVER Phase 1 (2006-2008) showed, that currently available land cover / land use systems such as the European CORINE land cover (CLC), the planned GMES Land Monitoring Core Service , the German topographic reference data set (ATKIS/DLM®) or the State-wide environmental habitat mapping schemes (BNTK in its national specification) are not sufficient on their own to fulfil all user requirements.

To support these systems not only accurate update information but also additional information (e.g. new LC classes, attributes) are required. Under DeCOVER 2 update processes based on the now operational satellite systems RapidEye (RE) and TerraSAR-X (TSX) will be developed to support the above mentioned target data systems. This so called DeCOVER Core Service will essentially be based on Vector-Raster change detection methods to provide reliable change information for existing t0 vector data using t1 TSX and RE.

In addition to the DeCOVER Core Service thematic services will be developed to provide monitoring information as required under existing European agricultural and environmental policies. Information on agricultural conditions and landscape elements are required under the so called Cross Compliance mechanism (Council Regulation 1782/2003 and Commission Regulation 796/2004). To obtain information on the required “Good Agricultural and Environmental Conditions” multitemporal classification models will be developed using RE and TSX time series for selected test sites.
These time series will also be used to model phaenological aspects of selected habitat types within protected NATURA 2000 sites. NATURA 2000 is a network of protected sites under the Flora-Fauna-Habitat directive (Council Directive 92/43/EEC) for which regular monitoring information on habitat changes and threats are required.

This paper will present first results on the service specification and implementations.

The DeCOVER 2 project is funded by the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (BMWI) via the German Aerospace Center (DLR): FKZ 50EE0908, 50EE0909, 50EE0910, 50EE0911, 50EE0912, 50EE0913, 50EE0914, 50EE0915.