Land cover and vegetation carbon stock changes in Greece: A 29-year assessment based on CORINE and Landsat land cover data

Highlights: • Land cover and vegetation carbon stocks changes in Greece were assessed. • Land cover changes are related to expansion of irrigated areas and woody vegetation. • Vegetation carbon stocks increased up to 2012 and decreased slightly thereafter. • Forests and Sclerophyllus vegetation control carbon sequestration in Greece. • Economic welfare of the country favors increased vegetation carbon stocks. Evaluation of carbon sequestration in various land cover types is a valuable tool for environmental policies targeting towards minimization of CO₂ emissions and climate change impacts. For the past few decades, remotely sensed information on land cover has been used as useful alternative to ground observations and has proved to be a robust tool for studying land use / land cover (LULC) changes. The present work deals with the assessment of land-cover changes in a Mediterranean country - Greece, where expected climate change impacts and desertification risk are stated to be severe. This work focused on the CORINE land cover inventory at a spatial resolution of 100 m from 1990 to 2018 and selected Landsat images at 30 m spatial resolution for 1990, 2000 and 2018. Results indicated that the dominant land-cover changes in Greece over the predefined 29-year period, are related to land transformation from Non-irrigated arable land to Irrigated areas, implying an intensification of agricultural practices. Natural grasslands lose a substantial part of their areas transforming into Sclerophyllus vegetation and Sparsely vegetated areas. Forests gain areas from Transitional woodland-shrub and Olive groves increase their extent indicating an overall transition to woody vegetation. Estimation of Vegetation Carbon Stocks indicated a moderate decrease in the 1990 decade followed by a significant increase up to 2012 and a slight decrease thereafter. Forests of all types are by far the most important carbon sinks. Possible implications of country's recent economic crisis were examined and results indicated that economic welfare of the country seems to favor certain land cover types such as Mixed Forests and Permanently Irrigated land, but also preservation of the Vegetation Carbon Stocks.