According to the RPA the definition are as follows.
Land parcels
A land parcel is an area of land that is 0.0100 hectares (ha) or larger with physical boundaries.
Examples of physical boundaries are:
hedges, walls, rivers, drains, ditches, roads
obvious changes such as woodland next to grass
watercourses if wider than 4 metres (m) can sometimes be used as a boundary
boundary stones and marker posts
Land cover
We classify land by identifying the physical nature of the land, referred to as land covers.
Table 1 shows the 4 land cover groups, and some examples of the land uses in each group.
Table 1: Examples of land cover and land use
Land cover | Land use examples |
Arable land | Winter wheat - Spring barley - Temporary grassland |
Permanent grassland | Permanent grassland |
Permanent crops | Nursery crops - Short rotation coppice - Lavender |
Non-agricultural area | Farm building - Structure - Woodland |