EU CORINE land use classification system its application and result in Çanakkale province

After a short description of Europen Union (EU) landcover/landuse (LC/LU) and environmental classification system CORINE, its application details for Çanakkale Province is described. In this study, CORINE classification has been studied in three stages. For this pupose, using satellite images of LANDSAT (2007) and ASTER (2008), land cover of Çanakkale Province has been investigated. The result of CORINE image classification are compared with results of Çanakkale Agricultural Provincial Office (CAO). They are found in good agreement. The results are then analized from the point of CORINE methodolojies. It is seen that some CORINE classes [i.e., at 2nd level, 2 out of 15 and at 3rd level 14 out of 44] do not exist in Çanakkale province. However, there is no class of Çanakkale province that is not in the CORINE classification plan.Contingency Tables for error estimations at all levels of classification work are prepared and analysed. Overall classification errors show increases as the level of classification deepens. For example, at the first 1st level, the overall accuracy is about 92% while in the 2rd level its is slightly lower (90%) and 3 rd level, accuracy falls further (to 84 %).As the second phase of CORINE application at Çanakkale, a comparison of LC/LU classes after 5 or 10 years of interval is not fulfilled at this stage. We propose that, in 2010, another CORINE classification work for Çanakkale province should be carried out, so that LC/LU change trends between these years can be determined, and comparisons with EU CORINE results can be made. This will also be in agreement with recent EU decision that, due to global heating pressures, another CORINE LC/LU classification application has been started in 2006 to be compared with 2010 results.