Malta research verification report - Copernicus land monitoring 2014-2020

Abstract

Although Malta does not fully employ the CLC products for its national needs, it was however committed to produce the CLC2018 products for its EU obligations. However, the use of CLC datasets has been generally consigned to generalized interpretation of maps for such products as the State of the Environment Report (SOER) and peripheral use in other projects; however any interpretation is mostly linked to EEA or other EU agencies’ queries. This said, Malta has still delivered the products based around the CLC2018 TOR and has concluded revisions to the CLC2012, CLC2018 and change analysis from 2012-2018. This process would allow users to gain knowledge of the five CLC products and change issues as seen within an EU project. This way PA may be able to further market the CLC products. In addition this specific contract covered the processes of post-production verification of the 2015 High Resolution Layers (HRLs) as per the terms of reference for the Implementing Framework service contract No EEA/IDM/R0/16/009/Malta. The aim of this task was to identify systematic classification errors that are eligible for improvement/enhancement. The themes covered by the HRL Verification process included imperviousness, tree cover density and dominant leaf type, grassland, Wetness and water and small woody features.