The management of agricultural policy and food security require timely and possibly objective agricultural statistics. In well organized countries crop area estimates are generally available a few months after harvest; having reliable figures before harvest is a major challenge. The European Union (EU) grands financial aid to farmers, growing a certain kind of crops. In 1992, the EU decided to establish an Integrated Administration and Control System (IACS) in order to administrate and to control the farmers’ declarations. In Romania, this Integrated Administration and Control System (IACS) was established in 2005. The requirements on the IACS were expanded to graphical applications by regulation amendments. Nowadays the system shall comprise five elements: 1. a computerized database; 2. an identification system for agricultural parcels; 3. a system for the identification and registration of animals; 4. aid applications; 5. an integrated control system. In the context of Land Parcel Identification and Net Area determination, the land cover types to be taken into account in this study is focused on: Arable Land, Forage Land, Forest, Water bodies, Infrastructure. The purpose of Control with Remote Sensing is to check the conditions under which aid is granted on a sample of applications. The primary result of these checks is a diagnosis at parcel level. The paper focuses is on methods that can be considered operational or pre-operational and to analyze the step from classified images to area estimation. Crop area estimation is addressed, but most criteria can be applied to land cover area estimation for environmental purposes. In this paper is investigated an updating process based on image classification and change detection. The images have to be rectified in order to get reliable information about agricultural parcels areas. Problems in image rectification are outlined and a classification case study using the ERDAS IMAGINE software shows chances and limits for land parcel update.

remote sensing; parcel; environment; crop; land

Presentation: oral