Land use and land cover databases for Mediterranean landscape analysis at the watershed scale

The study evaluates seven LULC products—CORINE, S2GLC, LUCAS, a LUCAS-based Landsat map, SIOSE, SIGPAC, and a custom Landsat/CORINE map—for the El Mijares watershed. It finds that no single product provides all necessary LULC details, with raster maps showing only 45.5% overall spatial consistency. While CORINE offers the longest time-series, the authors suggest that extending a Landsat/CORINE approach to the full Landsat series is the most suitable for long-term watershed analysis.

• The overall spatial consistency among the four evaluated raster LULC maps (CORINE, S2GLC, Landsat/LUCAS, and Landsat/CORINE) is relatively low, at 45.5% (+4.8%).
• Forests and shrublands are the dominant land covers in the El Mijares watershed, though their exact proportions vary significantly across different LULC products.
• The LUCAS database is the most effective for characterizing specific land uses, such as identifying that half of pine trees and a third of broadleaved forests are used for forestry, a level of detail absent in other products.
• S2GLC provides high spatial resolution (10 m) but fails to accurately classify agricultural land uses in the lower watershed, specifically misclassifying citrus plantations as vineyards.
• SIGPAC is the only database providing detailed agricultural parcel-scale data and suggests that shrublands in the region are used for grazing, indicated by a high prevalence of shrubby pastures (36.1%) and silvopasture (15.6%).
• CORINE and LUCAS data indicate a temporal trend of expansion for mixed and coniferous forests at the expense of grasslands and agricultural areas, potentially driven by land abandonment and forestry subsidies.
• For long-term analysis of the El Mijares watershed, the authors conclude that extending the Landsat/CORINE map to the entire Landsat series (since 1984/1985) is the most suitable approach due to its superior spatial and temporal resolution.

APA

Pompeu, J., Ruiz, I., Ruano, A., Bendini, H., & Sanz, M. J. (2021). Land use and land cover databases for Mediterranean landscape analysis at the watershed scale. Basque Centre for Climate Change. https://www.bc3research.org/h6T8Uy8Nm4gFs0O/20220119082323994153346.pdf

Chicago

Pompeu, João, Itxaso Ruiz, Antonio Ruano, Hugo Bendini, and María José Sanz. Land use and land cover databases for Mediterranean landscape analysis at the watershed scale. Basque Centre for Climate Change, 2021. https://www.bc3research.org/h6T8Uy8Nm4gFs0O/20220119082323994153346.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Pompeu |first1=João |last2=Ruiz |first2=Itxaso |last3=Ruano |first3=Antonio |last4=Bendini |first4=Hugo |last5=Sanz |first5=María José |title=Land use and land cover databases for Mediterranean landscape analysis at the watershed scale |publisher=Basque Centre for Climate Change |date=August 2021 |url=https://www.bc3research.org/h6T8Uy8Nm4gFs0O/20220119082323994153346.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{pompeu2021land, author = {Pompeu, João and Ruiz, Itxaso and Ruano, Antonio and Bendini, Hugo and Sanz, María José}, title = {{Land use and land cover databases for Mediterranean landscape analysis at the watershed scale}}, institution = {Basque Centre for Climate Change}, year = {2021}, month = aug, url = {https://www.bc3research.org/h6T8Uy8Nm4gFs0O/20220119082323994153346.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }