The release of the Copernicus HRL-VLCC on Croplands and Grasslands creates new possibilities to develop EO-based policy indicators for evaluating agricultural policies. This brief outlines the JRC work to exploit these layers, addressing data quality issues and the gap between EO data and policy needs.
Despite overall high quality, JRC assessments have identified some issues, such as impossible land cover sequences or temporal overlaps between cropping seasons. The JRC is developing corrected layers to support more robust policy evaluation and giving feedback to the Copernicus Land Monitoring Service to further enhance the HRL-VLCC. Systematic reprocessing of EO data is essential to support policy monitoring, balancing the temporal stability needed for policy evaluation with continuous data improvement.
The brief also outlines the JRC methodology to derive indicators on crop diversity, crop rotation, cover crops, crop phenology, and grassland age. These indicators could support the evaluation of key EU policies related to agriculture and land use, including the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), the LULUCF Regulation, the Nature Restoration Regulation, the Soil Monitoring Directive, and the Carbon Removal and Carbon Farming Regulation.
URRACA Ruben;
CLAVERIE Martin;
IORDANOV Momchil;
MARTINEZ SANCHEZ Laura;
VAN DER VELDE Marijn;
2026-05-11
European Commission
JRC146242
https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC146242,
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