Riparian Zones Land Cover Land Use 2012

Riparian zones represent transitional areas occurring between land and freshwater ecosystems, characterised by distinctive hydrology, soil and biotic conditions and strongly influenced by the stream water. They provide a wide range of riparian functions (e.g. chemical filtration, flood control, bank stabilization, aquatic life and riparian wildlife support, etc.) and ecosystem services. The Riparian Zones products will support the objectives of several European legal acts and policy initiatives, such as the EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2020, the Habitats and Birds Directives and the Water Framework Directive. Land Cover/Land Use (LC/LU) classification is tailored to the needs of biodiversity monitoring in a tailored buffer zone along large and medium-sized European rivers (with Strahler levels 3-8 derived from EU-Hydro). LC/LU is extracted from VHR satellite data and other available data in a buffer zone of selected rivers. The classes follow the pre-defined nomenclature on the basis of MAES typology of ecosystems (Level 1 to Level 4) and Corine Land Cover, providing 80 distinct thematic classes with a Minimum Mapping Unit (MMU) of 0.5 ha and a Minimum Mapping Width (MMW) of 10 m. The production of the Riparian Zones products was coordinated by the European Environment Agency in the frame of the EU Copernicus programme.