In Search of Classification that Supports the Dynamics of Science: The FAO Land Cover Classification System and Proposed Modifications

Classification of geographic phenomena is often a black box to anyone outside the immediate group involved in the classification process. There is a growing need for compatibility between datasets to map, evaluate, and monitor areas in a consistent manner. The FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) Land Cover Classification system (LCCS) is a proposed method to enable interoperability for land-cover data and an attempt to open the classification black box for scrutiny. The FAO LCCS is used to demonstrate some of the strengths and weaknesses of feature-based classification methods and how some important improvements, based on theoretical developments in geographic information science, can extend LCCS to become a ‘boundary object’ that supports representation, negotiation, and analysis of dynamic and heterogeneous classification systems. The suggested improvements also include an outline of how future classification activities could be developed into a distributed web-based ontology infrastructure.