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a b s t r a c tThe Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) of the European Union (EU) has dramatically changed after 1992, and from then on the CAP focused on the management of direct income subsidies instead of productionbased subsidies. For this focus, Member States (MS) are expected to establish Integrated Administration and Control System (IACS), including a Land Parcel Identification System (LPIS) as the spatial part of IACS. Different MS have chosen different solutions for their LPIS. Currently, some MS based their IACS/LPIS on data from their Land Administration Systems (LAS), and many others use purpose built special systems for their IACS/LPIS. The issue with these different IACS/LPIS is that they do not have standardized structures; rather, each represents a unique design in each MS, both in the case of LAS based or special systems. In this study, we aim at designing a core data model for those IACS/LPIS based on LAS. For this purpose, we make use of the ongoing standardization initiatives for LAS (Land Administration Domain Model: LADM) and IACS/LPIS (LPIS Core Model: LCM). The data model we propose in this study implies the collaboration between LADM and LCM and includes some extensions. Some basic issues with the collaboration model are discussed within this study: registration of farmers, land use rights and farming limitations, geometry/topology, temporal data management etc. For further explanation of the model structure, sample instance level diagrams illustrating some typical situations are also included.

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This study explored the potential of optical and thermal satellite imagery to monitor temporal and spatial changes in the position of the water table depth (WTD) in the peat layer of northern bogs. We evaluated three different trapezoid models that are proposed in the literature for soil moisture monitoring in regions with mineral soils. Due to the tight capillary connection between water table and surface soil moisture, we hypothesized that the soil moisture indices retrieved from these models would be correlated with WTD measured in situ. Two trapezoid models were based on optical and thermal imagery, also known as Thermal-Optical TRApezoid Models (TOTRAM), and one was based on optical imagery alone, also known as the OPtical TRApezoid Model (OPTRAM). The models were applied to Landsat imagery from 2008 to 2019 and the derived soil moisture indices were compared with in-situ WTD from eight locations in two Estonian bogs. Our results show that only the OPTRAM index was significantly (p-value < 0.05) correlated in time with WTD (average Pearson correlation coefficient of 0.41 and 0.37, for original and anomaly time series, respectively), while the two tested TOTRAM indices were not. The highest temporal correlation coefficients (up to 0.8) were observed for OPTRAM over treeless parts of the bogs. An assessment of the spatial correlation between soil moisture indices and WTD indicated that all three models did not capture the spatial variation in water table depth. Instead, the spatial patterns of the indices were primarily attributable to vegetation patterns.

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The OPtical TRApezoid Model (OPTRAM) is a physically-based approach for remote soil moisture estimation. OPTRAM is based on the response of short-wave infrared (SWIR) reflectance to vegetation water status, which in turn responds to changes of root-zone soil moisture. In peatlands, the latter is tightly coupled to water table depth (WTD). Therefore, in theory, the OPTRAM index might be a useful tool to monitor WTD dynamics in peatlands, although the sensitivity of OPTRAM index to WTD changes will likely depend on vegetation cover and related rooting depth. In this study, we aim at identifying those locations (further called ‘best pixels’) where the OPTRAM index is most representative of overall peatland WTD dynamics. In peatlands, the high saturated hydraulic conductivity of the upper layer largely synchronizes the temporal WTD fluctuations over several kilometers, i.e., even though the mean and amplitude of the WTD dynamics may vary in space. Therefore, it can be assumed that the WTD time series, either measured at a single location or simulated for a grid cell with the PEATland-specific adaptation of the NASA Catchment Land Surface Model (PEATCLSM), are representative of the overall peatland WTD dynamics. We took advantage of this concept to identify the ‘best pixel’ of all spatially distributed OPTRAM pixels within a peatland, as that pixel with the highest time series Pearson correlation (R) with WTD data accounting for temporal autocorrelation. The OPTRAM index was calculated based on various remotely sensed images, namely, Landsat, MODIS, and aggregated Landsat images at MODIS resolution for five northern peatlands with long-term WTD records, including both bogs and fens. The ‘best pixels’ were dominantly covered with mosses and graminoids with little or no shrub or trees. However, the performance of OPTRAM highly depended on the spatial resolution of the remotely sensed data. The Landsat-based OPTRAM index yielded the highest R values (mean of 0.7 across the ‘best pixels’ in five peatlands). Our study further indicates that, in the absence of historical in situ data, PEATCLSM can be used as an alternative to localize ‘best pixels’. This finding enables the future applicability of OPTRAM to monitor WTD changes in peatlands on a global scale.