Presentation of the Italian system

1. AGEA: Agency for Agricultural Supplies (Italian Paying Agency) Presentation of the Italian system Land Parcel Information System LPIS

2. Italian LPIS brief History • 1999 - First implementation in Italy of an embryonic LPIS (Not Eligible Areas Cadastre) beginning with 32 provinces only on declared parcels, only for arable land and coupled payments no forage crops • 2000 – completion of the NEA cadastre on all the country (on parcel declared in 1999 and 2000) • 2001/2007 – LPIS updating on new orthoimages when the province was under control whit RS (5%) and the last aerial image available was older than three years; • 2007 – beginning of the new LPIS philosophy, photointerpretation independently from cadastral layer only on the image, on a third of the National territory, but yet only on the declared areas; In a second time the LC layer had cut with the cadastre and every parcel obtain his MEA. • 2008/2009 – completion of the first turn on all the National area – extension to all the territory independently from farmer declarations.

3. First implementation of GIS 2000-2007 • Start of the activities for creating an operational GIS system at national level using: • cadastral maps had to be digitized for 2/3 of the country • coordinates transformation, with the required precision, was performed from cadastral reference system to national UTM • boundaries of all declared parcels were digitized • eligible and not eligible areas were identified within all digitized parcels (from existing not eligible areas registry SNE 1997-1999) • After the GIS implementation the database has been constantly updated through: • updated cadastral information • annual photo-interpretation of all the newly declared parcels • feedbacks from Controls with Remote Sensing activities or On the Spot • new ortho-imagery for one third of the national territory each year 3

4. The drivers for a change-improvement (2007-2009) • Context of utilization of LPIS changed quite significantly in the last years: • CAP reform in 2005 with issues like total and partial decoupling, entitlement assignment, cross compliance for agro-environment; • other regimes included in SPS: olive oil, nuts, tobacco, fruits, vegetables and vineyards. • Remarks from EU auditors, highlighting some point of weakness of the system as: • lack of homogeneity and incomplete interpretation due to the scarce correspondence of the cadastral parcel to the reality of agricultural assets; • cycle of updating scheduled in not completely rational way.

5. Reference standard used • Council Regulation (EC) No 1782/2003 • Commission Regulation (EC) No 796/2004 –No 1122/2009 • Council Regulation (EC) 73/2009 • Council Regulation (EC) 146/2010 • Joint Research Center – JRC documents • Common technical specifications for the campaign of remote-sensing control of area-based subsidies (annual); • Guidelines for Best Practice and Quality Checking of Ortho Imagery (Issue 3.0); • LPIS Quality Assurance Framework - Executable Test Suite (ETS) • ANNEX I LPIS data quality measures; • ANNEX II Flow of events, related to the inspection of the Reference Parcel; • ANNEX III The Concept of land cover and “eligible hectares”; • Eligibility Profile" Template, version 4.3, October 2010.

6. Project timeschedule(first step, mainlyprovincial)

7. The upgrade project, from 2007 • LPIS upgrade (“refresh project”) has been starting in 2007 based on the following basic elements: • land cover photo-interpretation not constrained by cadastral boundaries, but realized as a “continuous” layer (physical block approach); • basic land cover legend distinguishing agricultural areas (eligible for payments) and not agricultural areas (not eligible for payments); • higher ortho-imagery quality (color RGB+IR and pixel 50 cm.); • digital orthophotos at scale 1:10.000, working scale between 1:1.000 and 1:3.000; • 3 years update cycle, but favoring a regional approach; • Widespread use of ancillary data, from others registries (vineyard, olive tree, nuts, …) preserving the value of historical information; • complete coverage of the entire national territory (300.000 sq.km) not limited to the declared parcels for subsidies application; artificial, natural and forestry were included.

8. Classification • The new classification is based on 3 major groups: • not agricultural land cover (A), • agricultural land cover (B), • agricultural land use (C) from previous registry data A

9. Classification B C

10. Main targets reached in brief • Setting up an up to date, complete and homogeneous set of geo-information for the entire national territory where the classification of agricultural surfaces is not limited from cadastral boundaries but based on a “physical block” approach. • Mapping agricultural surfaces, in coherence with new requirements (i.e. stronger integration of 1 and 2 pillar, cross compliance, …) • Defining a certified baseline layer, through an administrative procedure, involving the farmers and their representative bodies in order to share and validate geographic informations.

11. Further Remarks from EU auditors as drivers for the second cycle procedures tuning During the first updating cycle (2007/2009) several EU Audits occurred which leads Commission Technical services to several remarks ( DG AGRI 28008 21/11/2008 and ARES 2010 158601 25/03/2010) the most relevant were: • delimitation of pasture polygons was considered not always homogenous over the territory; pieces of land with different rates of tare was found aggregated in the same polygon classified with the same code even if they contain locally unequal percentage of not eligible elements. • The minimum mapping unit of non eligible elements during LPIS CAPI (400 sm) was different from the one used during OTS, this fact could became the cause of an incorrect evaluation of not eligible area when LPIS area should be taken in account as baseline for the calculation in the OTS sampled farms

12. Further Remarks from EU auditors as drivers for the second cycle procedures tuning Such remarks together with further needs coming from a more environmental approach to the GIS and the new “updating” point of view did bring to to the changes in the second cycle technical procedures. The most important were: • The minimum mapping unit of non eligible elements was changed from the previous 400 m2 to 100 m2 in line with the OTS threshold. • The tara LC maximum mapping unit was reduced from the previous 2000 m2 to 1000 m2 • A more severe rules were implemented about how delimitate natural pastures detailed description of stricter delimitation of pasture polygons was considered not always homogenous over the territory; pieces of land with different rates of tare was found aggregated in the same polygon classified with the same code even if they contain locally unequal percentage of not eligible elements,

13. In-depth classification some codes open to became eligible

14. Project time schedule (second step regional)

15. Color VHR image – pixel 0,5 m • Il Progetto “refresh” – attraverso le immagini 15

16. Refresh layer on VHR images 16

17. Overlap VHR – cadastral map 17

18. Farm block => contiguous cadastral parcels cultivated by the same farmer 18

19. Refresh layer on the Farm block cadastral sheet 19

20. Refresh layer cutting out on the farmer block 20

21. Farm block 21

22. Data publication on the IACS The publication in the IACS isdoneby the integrationofnewtechincal data with the declared information by the farmers in the farm’sregister (alphanumeric/graphic info ofallItfarmers) byautomaticinterpolationofland cover layers and farm’s properties, consolidatedby the centersforassistancetofarmers (CAA) 22

23. Farm Block consistency extracted by farm register and LPIS 23

24. Management of eventual re-view instances COMMUNICATION FARM SITAUTION CHECK SUPPORT (via call center-CAA) ACCEPTANCE(tacit consent) OBJECTIONS / REMARKSBACKOFFICE (via mail or web application) BACKOFFICE PROCESSING CERTIFIED GIS Positive outcome Negative outcome POSSIBLE FIELD SURVEY MEETING MANAGING 24