Accuracy Assessment of the First Eu-Wide Crop Type Map with Lucas Data

Relating satellite data to in-situ observations is essential for land monitoring applications. In the EU, in-situ information is collected through the Land Use/Cover Area frame Survey (LUCAS). There is a growing interest in combining LUCAS land cover information with Earth Observation (EO) data for land applications. However, questions remains on how to make use of the full potential of LUCAS data for training and validating EO algorithms. In this study, the 2018 LUCAS survey data are used to validate the first EU-wide crop type map produced by the Joint Research Centre. Together with a conventional accuracy assessment based on the error matrix, a spatial assessment is proposed to evaluate accuracy at the pixel level.