1. Land use and spatial planning (LUSP)
EIONET
Interest Group meeting on land use and spatial planning
Copenhagen, September 2012
Gorm Dige
European Environment Agency

2. What is land use, land take and spatial planning?
Some definitions:
Land use: Territory characterised according to its current and future planned functional dimension or socio-economic purpose (e.g. residential, industrial, commercial, agricultural, forestry, recreational).
Land take: Loss of agriculture, forest and other semi-natural and natural land taken by urban and other artificial land development. It includes areas where soil is sealed by construction and urban infrastructure as well as urban green areas and sport and leisure facilities.
Spatial planning: This entails organising the distribution of activities across a territory, structuring a territory and the players in it around a vision of the desired development.

3. EU policies/initiatives relevant to LUSP

4. What are the policy responses to LUSP?
Main EU policies / initiatives relevant to LUSP:
European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP) – aims to coordinate various European regional policy impacts and advocates the development of a sustainable, polycentric and balanced urban system with compact cities.
Roadmap on Resource Efficient Europe – milestone: no net land-take by What does this mean? No net change (increase) in built-up areas. If built-up new infrastructure have to reclaim the area some where else (e.g. transform brownfields into agriculture or natural land).
Biodiversity Strategy 2020: 15 % restoration of ecosystems by 2020.
Leipzig Charter of Sustainable European Cities – compact settlement structure as especially sustainable.

5. What are the policy responses to LUSP?
EU polices / initiatives with cross-cutting nature of LUSP:
Territorial Agenda changes in land use (urbanisation, mass tourism, etc.) threaten landscapes and lead to fragmentation of natural habitats and ecological corridors.
Strategic Environmental Assessment (SIA) and Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Directives can improve the consideration of env. aspects in planning projects and contribute to a more systematic and transparent planning.
European Floods Directive address flooding caused by the construction of impervious surfaces (e.g. buildings and roads).
The EU thematic strategy on the sustainable use of natural resources includes space as a resource. It applies to areas of land and maritime space that are needed for production purposes (e.g. minerals, timber, food). These interests are often competing for the same territorial resource.
Rural development and Regional Policies deals with the cross-cutting nature of land use.

6. Main stages in the policy cycle supported by data, info. and knowledge
Issue identification
Issue framing
Policy measures identification (ex-ante impact assessment)
Policy measure development
Policy measure implementation
Policy measure effectiveness (ex-post impact assessment)
Data
Information
Knowledge

7. Information networks relevant to LUSP

8. EEA data and information framework
SEIS (principles)
INSPIRE
(Directive/
Principles)
EIONET
(Network)
LUDC
(Platform)
Eye on Earth
GMES
GISC GIO Land
(Data provider)

9. Datasets relevant to LUSP

10. Input data sources Urban level Landscape level Primary data
GMES Urban Atlas
Corine Land Cover
Soil imperviousness
Derived data
Urban morphological zones
Landscape fragmentation
Corine ecotones
Green Background Landscape Index (GBLI)
Net Landscape Ecological Potential
Data applications
Quickscan
LEAC cube

11. Trends in land use and spatial planning in Europe
Indicator
Land take (CSI 014)
Trends in land use and spatial planning in Europe

12. Land take (CSI 014)

13. Trend - land take is increasing

14. Lost land cover due to land take in Europe
2006
Relative contribution of land-cover categories to urban and other artificial land development

15. Where have the more important artificial land uptakes occurred?

16. What are the drivers of uptake for urban and other artificial land development?
2000 – 2006 EUR36

17. Challenges of land take in relation to spatial and territorial development

18. Population development in EU cities

19. … leading to high rates of soil sealing in EU 27
Pressures: refers to unsustainable trends between
State: refers to the share of sealed surfaces out of the total national territory
Responses: refers to the intensity of already implemented measures
Green colour: low sealing rate less that 1.6%
Yellow colour: Moderate sealing rate ranging from 1.6% and 3%.
Red Colour: high sealing rates with more than 3%.

20. Urban development patterns

21. Main drivers of current urban sprawl in Europe

22. Land use planning & green infrastructure
GI and its provision of ecosystem goods and services is linked to land take issues.
It contributes to minimising natural disaster risks, surface water run-off to reduce the risk of flooding, preventing soil erosion, connecting habitats, mitigating urban heat island effects, etc.
Land take / spatial planning - key role in facilitating and delivering GI.

23. Land use planning & economic instruments
Prerequisite to land-use planning & env. policy:
Env. objectives in spatial planning policy
Legal framework, land taxation systems, cadastral systems, territorial planning, etc. in place
Economic instruments in land-use planning & env. policy:
Taxation, fees & charges imposed on undesired land-use practices
Tradable permit systems - option for land consumption targets
Subsidies – environmentally motivated and applied for specific land use purposes
Payments for ecosystem services
Open space & green field developments through taxation

24. Planning and managing land take - lessons learned in Germany
Objective of the National Sustainable Development Strategy (2002):
By 2020, land take for new housing and transport developments is to be limited to 30 ha per day.
The objective is very ambitious: Situation from : 129 ha per day. Situation from 2007–2010: 87 ha per day.
The German approach is a twin-track strategy, comprising:
further strengthening inner urban development;
limiting new land take on the urban fringe.
Implementation with a mix of instruments, such as:
Giving priority to inner urban development; Revitalizing the inner cities; Space-saving housing developments with low levels of traffic; Enhancing the productivity of land; Land recycling; Taking soil qualities into account; and Safeguarding open spaces.
The 30 ha objective is addressed primarily to the federal states (regional and sub-regional planning) and local authorities (development planning). The Federal Government supports their efforts through legislation (spatial planning law, urban development law); financial assistance and research programmes; and information.

25. Conceptual framework for integrated land assessment

26. Conceptual framework for integrated land assessment

27. Land use and ecosystem services
Source: Foley et al., 2005 Science Vol. 309

28. ….leading to assessments and other products

29. Information

30. Thank you for your attention