Abstract
land cover classification is essential for natural resource management, environmental monitoring, disaster management, agriculture and forestry, and urban planning. It enables the understanding of the distribution and extent of different types of vegetation, soil, water, and other natural resources (Di Gregorio and Jansen, 2016). This information is crucial for managing and conserving natural resources, sustainable land use planning and decision-making, emergency response, risk assessment, and disaster recovery planning. Unfortunately, the use of the different land cover maps and their integration into one functional system is limited by several constraints. Some of them such as lack of documentation, inconsistency in spatial and temporal resolutions, accessibility, lack of standardization. Others, mainly related to the semantic interoperability of different datasets as the result of the use of different classification systems, are often underestimated. However, these play a decisive and important role in the correct use and understanding of such information. Different land cover classification systems use different classification schemes and terminology, making it difficult to compare data across different regions or time periods. This can lead to confusion and errors in analysis and decision-making (Gregorio, 2016). There are several land cover classification systems in use around the world. The most widely used classification systems include the Land Cover Classification System (LCCS), the United States Geological Survey's National Land Cover Database (NLCD), the European Environment Agency's CORINE land cover, the Global Land Cover Characterization (GLCC), and the World Wildlife Fund's Terrestrial Ecoregions. The LCCS is a standardized system developed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) (Di Gregorio, A., and Jansen, 2000; Di Gregorio, 2016; Gregorio and Jansen, 2005; Di Gregorio and Jansen, 2016; Jalal et al., 2019). It classifies land cover into five broad categories: water bodies, forests, grasslands, croplands, and artificial surfaces and serval subcategories based on regional ecosystem. The NLCD is a classification system used in the United States, which classifies land cover into 21 classes. The CORINE land cover, is a classification system used in Europe, which classifies land cover into 44 classes. The GLCC is a classification system used at the global level, which classifies land cover into 24 classes. The Terrestrial Ecoregions classification system is used to describe global biodiversity patterns and classifies land cover into 825 ecoregions. The Land Cover Classification System (LCCS/LCML) is a classification system used to categorize the different types of land cover on the Earth's surface. It is used to create land cover maps, which are important for understanding and managing natural resources, as well as for monitoring changes in land use and land cover over time. The LCCS consists of a hierarchical structure of land cover classes, which are organized into different levels of detail. At the highest level, there are five major land cover categories: water bodies, forests, grasslands, croplands, and artificial surfaces. Each major category is further subdivided into more specific classes, such as broadleaf forests, coniferous forests, or mixed forests under the forests category. 2 The LCCS has been developed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO and is widely used by many organizations and institutions involved in environmental monitoring and management. The system has evolved over time to reflect advances in remote sensing technology and changes in land use patterns. The latest version of the LCCS is the FAO's Global Land Cover Classification System (GLCCS), which was released in 2020 and includes 23 land cover classes at the highest level (FAO, 2021). The Libyan land cover reference system is an effort to harmonize land cover monitoring in the country. The objective of this document is to present a national land cover reference system (LCRS) for representing LCLU. This document will serve as the basis for the development of national land cover maps, but also can be used as a reference for various national initiatives such as the national forest inventory or the greenhouse gas inventory and other activities that require information about regional, national, and subnational Land Cover and Land Use (LCLU) (Di Gregorio, 2016).