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| LCCS and ISO |
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| LCCS and the ISO Process |
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At present there is no internationally accepted land cover
classification system. However, FAO has submitted LCCS for
approval to become an international standard through the
TC 211
technical committee of the International Organization for Standardization
(ISO)
ISO is the world's largest developer of standards with a
network of 147 national standards institutes with a Central
Secretariat in Geneva, Switzerland.
Established in 1994, the ISO/TC 211 is responsible for developing
International Standards and Technical Specifications for digital
geographic information (such as used by geographic information
systems) and geomatics (the measurement of the earth).
ISO/TC 211 has currently published nearly 40 International
Standards and other deliverables and another set of 20 is
under development or revision. The work of the committee
has provided a solid state-of-the-art framework for establishing,
documenting (including metadata), integrating, archiving,
disseminating and interpreting measurements and data.
LCCS has the potential to become accepted as the international land cover classification standard thanks to its inherent flexibility, applicability to all climatic zones and environmental
conditions, and compatibility with the existing classification
systems.
LCCS has been submitted to ISO as two separate parts. The
first, "Classification Systems - Part 1, Classification
system structure" is generic standards for classification
systems in general and the second "Classification Systems
- Part 2, UN FAO - Land Cover Classification System LCCS
Conceptual Basis and Registration of Classifiers" is
specific standard for LCCS. These documents were given ISO
numbers 19144-1 and 19144-2 respectively. This enables other
organizations to establish other types of classification systems,
including land cover classifications systems that are compliant
with the generic standard but are compatible with LCCS.
The documents were submitted to TC211 for comment and vote
as a committee draft in early 2006 and an "editing meeting"
was held in May 2006. Editing was undertaken in 2007 based on
comments recieved.
Part one is now a Draft International Standard (DIS) and part 2
is now a Committee Draft to be voted for registration as a
DIS.
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