The CORINE land cover maps present the longest series of land cover maps with a consistent class labelling system and date back to 1985. This paper presents the results of the CORINE land cover mapping of the United Kingdom for 2012 and the corresponding land cover change map from 2006 to 2012. It compares the rates of change with those of the preceding land cover change map 2000–2006 and finds that land cover change has become smaller in scale, more diverse in types of change and affects more land cover polygons than in the past reporting period. Land cover change from 2006 to 2012 affected almost 60% more land cover polygons than from 2000 to 2006. A greater variety of 165 types of land cover change was detected from 2006 to 2012 than the 67 types of change from 2000 to 2006. The total land cover change area increased by over 21,000 ha or 11% but remained at around 1% of the total land area of the UK. Rotation forestry mostly of conifer forests was a dominant type of land cover change in both periods (53% of overall change from 2000 to 2006 and 54% from 2006 to 2012), followed by growth and replanting of conifer forest. From 2006 to 2012 the replanting rate decreased by almost 15,000 ha compared to 2000–2006 and a smaller decrease in planting of broadleaf and mixed forests was also observed. Urban land take continued from 2006 to 2012 in the UK, with over 16,000 ha of increase in artificial surfaces. The rate of change from other land cover types to artificial surfaces accelerated from 2006 to 2012. However, we urge caution when interpreting the rate of land take, as it includes wind farms in forested areas which leave the forest largely intact apart from an access road and the wind turbine sites. We also found that the inference from the land cover change matrices is dependent on the level of class aggregation (level 1, 2 or 3).

CORINE土地覆盖图提供了最长系列的土地覆盖图，具有统一的标签系统，其历史可追溯到1985年。本文介绍了英国CORINE土地覆盖图在2012年的结果以及与之对应的土地覆盖变化图2006年至2012年。将变化率与先前的2000-2006年土地覆盖变化图进行了比较，发现土地覆盖变化的规模变小了，变化类型更加多样化，并且比过去影响了更多的土地覆盖多边形报告期。与2000年至2006年相比，2006年至2012年的土地覆被变化影响了近60％的土地覆被多边形。2006年至2012年，发现的165种土地覆被变化种类比2000年至2006年的67种变化种类更多。土地覆被变化面积增加了21多个，000公顷，即11％，但仍占英国总土地面积的1％。在这两个时期中，轮作林主要是针叶林的变化是土地覆盖变化的主要类型（2000年至2006年占总变化的53％，2006年至2012年占54％的总体变化），其次是针叶林的生长和补植。与2000–2006年相比，从2006年至2012年，补植率下降了近15,000公顷，并且阔叶和混交林的种植量也有所减少。从2006年到2012年，英国的城市用地面积持续增加，人造地表面积增加了1.6万公顷。从2006年到2012年，从其他土地覆被类型到人工地表的变化速度有所加快。但是，在解释土地占用率时，我们应谨慎行事，因为它包括林区中的风电场，除了通行道路和风力涡轮机站点外，这些林在很大程度上使森林完好无损。我们还发现，从土地覆盖变化矩阵得出的结论取决于分类汇总的级别（1、2或3级）。