Analysis of Present Status for the Monitoring of Land Use and Land Cover in the Korean Peninsula

This paper is written to analyze possible problems encountered with the existing data for the monitoring of land use and land cover change over the Korean peninsula and, further, to provide technical alternatives for the future land monitoring over the area. The oldest type of non-spatial data related to the land use change are cadastral statistics obtained since 1911. Annual statistics of cadastral data in early years (before 1942) can be used to assess land use change over the area. However, the cadastral statistics after the Korean War are not very appropriate for land use monitoring since the land class in cadastral data does not always correspond with actual land cover status. Majority of spatial data available for land monitoring over the area are land cover maps classified from satellite imagery since early 1970's. To analyze the suitability of land cover maps that were produced by two separate institutes with about 10 years interval, we conducted simple change detection analysis using these maps. These maps were not quite ready to be compared each other, in which they did not have the same class definition, classification method, and geometric registration. To achieve continuous and effective monitoring of land use and land cover change, particularly over North Korea, we should have a standard scheme in type and season of satellite imagery, image classification procedure, and class definition, which also should correspond to international standards.