Land cover in Norway based on an area frame survey of vegetation types

Abstract

The Norwegian area frame survey of land cover and outfield land resources (AR18X18), completed in 2014, provided unbiased statistics of land cover in Norway. The article reports the new statistics, discusses implications of the data set, and provides potential value in terms of research, management, and monitoring. A gridded sampling design for 1081 primary statistical units of 0.9 km 2 at 18 km intervals was implemented in the survey. The plots were mapped in situ, aided by aerial photos, and all areas were coded following a vegetation type system. The results provide new insights into the cover and distribution of vegetation and land cover types. The statistic for mire and wetlands, which previously covered 5.8%, has since been corrected to 8.9%. The survey results can be used for environmental and agricultural management, and the data can be stratified for regional analyses. The survey data can also serve as training data for remote sensing and distribution modelling. Finally, the survey data can be used to calibrate vegetation perturbations in climate change research that focuses on atmospheric-vegetation feedback. The survey documented novel land cover statistics and revealed that the national cover of wetlands had previously been underestimated.

Distribution modelling of vegetation types based on area frame survey data

“…All AR18X18 plots were subjected to wall‐to‐wall vegetation mapping during the period 2004–2014, using a classification scheme with 57 land cover and vegetation types (Strand, ). Unbiased and area‐representative statistics for VTs in Norway have been obtained by analysis of AR18X18 data (Bryn et al., ).…”

Bridging theory and implementation – Testing an abstract classification system for practical mapping by field survey and 3D aerial photographic interpretation

“…From our point of view, traditions within a country are strong drivers for the choice of mapping method. For example, Norway has a long tradition of land cover mapping based on FS (Bryn et al 2018). However, the results of our study show that a workflow that integrates API and FS could become a more optimal mapping methodology for the NiN classification system.…”

“…Practical mapping of land cover in Norway, following the NiN classification system, is currently solely based on FS . The mapping is expensive and the progress is slow, even compared with traditional vegetation mapping based on FS (Bryn et al 2018;Ullerud et al 2018). Provided the fact that mapping tailored for API enables a much higher rate of progress than FS (Vesterbukt et al 2013), and that Norway is a country with large remote or inaccessible areas for which API has an advantage (Ståhl et al 2011;Johansen 2013), it should be a general goal to phase in more API in the mapping process based on NiN in Norway.…”

Diversity and distribution of landscape types in Norway

“…presence of, and the fractional area occupied by, major NiN ecosystem types (cf. Bryn et al 2018)], will represent a significant improvement. Furthermore, inclusion of landscape elements and landscape properties related to historical land use (Fairclough & Herring 2016) will broaden the scope of the type system.…”

“…The study area spanned latitudes from 57°57’N to 71°11’N and longitudes from 4°29’E to 31°10’E and comprised the entire mainland of Norway, including the coastal zone and marine areas. The range of variation in natural conditions found in Norway includes most of the variation found in the circumboreal zone (Bryn et al 2018), including both terrestrial, marine, limnic and snow and ice ecosystems (Halvorsen et al 2016). All seven bioclimatic temperature-related vegetation zones commonly recognised in northern Europe, from boreo-nemoral to high alpine, occur in Norway (Bakkestuen et al 2008).…”