Website: Statistics: Land cover / use statistics (LUCAS)

Land is the basis for most biological and human activities on the earth. Agriculture, forestry, industries, transport, housing and other services all use land as a natural and/or an economic resource. Land is also an integral part of ecosystems and indispensable for biodiversity and carbon cycle.

Land can be divided into two interlinked concepts:
- Land cover refers to the bio-physical coverage of land (e.g. crops, grass, broad-leaved forest, or build-up area),
- Land use indicates the socio-economic use of land (e.g. agriculture, forestry, recreation or residential use).

Since 2006, Eurostat has carried out a survey on the state and the dynamics of changes in land use and cover in the European Union called the LUCAS survey. The surveys are done every three years. The LUCAS surveys are carried out in-situ; this means that observations are made and registered on the ground all over the EU. The latest LUCAS survey (2012) covers all the then 27 EU countries and observations on more than 270,000 points.

In 2015 Eurostat is carrying out the LUCAS 2015 survey on the land cover and use situation and changes in the European Union. The survey takes place between March and October 2015. Surveyors from 28 Member States will visit a total of 273,401 points.

The collected information will be used only for the production of European scale statistics and will not retain any information of personal or land property character. The LUCAS Survey data will not be used for agricultural subsidies controls, and is not suitable for such a purpose.

From the LUCAS survey 3 types of information are obtained:
- Micro data: land cover, land use and environmental parameters associated to the single surveyed points,
- Point and landscape photos in the four cardinal directions,
- Statistical tables with aggregated results by land cover, land use at geographical level; these estimates are based on the point data conveniently weighted.