At the beginning of the 2000's Regione Lombardia and ERSAF began a cartographic survey program addressing small-scale land cover and usage. First it was necessary to have detailed geographic databases of the entire region available and then to monitor the developmental changes of the region. The information layers that were products consisted of polygonal features (usage and land cover) and linear features (hedges and rows). The thematic map construction was prevalently carried out by

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... rpretation of aerial images. The adopted classification was divided into five hierarchical levels where the first three consisted of classes of CORINE Land Cover. The need to represent some local peculiarities has led to the introduction of two additional levels (IV and V), which describe the characteristic features of the Lombardy region. During the past years the program has become well established and has led to the creation of the layers relative to five di erent historical moments: 1954/1955, 1980 (data of less detail), 1999, 2007, and 2012.