1. Mirko Gregor | 17.06.2019 | DG Regio, Brussels
Meeting of National Urban Audit Coordinators
Environmental data and indicators as potential support to city statistics

2. Structure About EEA and Eionet
Past history of urban assessments using city statistics in EEA
Products, data, indicators and activities
Land use/land cover
Air quality
Noise
Urban (waste) water
Urban adaptation

3. About EEA
Agency of the European Union, whose task is to provide sound, independent information on the environment through the provision of timely, targeted, relevant and reliable information to policymaking agents and the public

4. About Eionet
Eionet is a partnership network of the EEA and its member and cooperating countries that helps to bring together environmental information from individual countries concentrating on the delivery of timely, nationally validated, high-quality data
Knowledge is made widely available through the EEA website and forms the basis of both thematic and integrated environmental assessments

5. Urban assessments using city statistics in EEA
‘Urban sprawl – the ignored challenge’ report (2006)
‘Quality of life in cities’ report (2009)
‘Urban adaptation to climate change’ (two reports 2012 and 2016, map book, viewer on Climate-ADAPT)
Series of 3 reports on resource-efficient cities (2015)
SOER urban briefing (2015)
Land recycling report (2016)
‘Rivers and lakes in European cities’ report (2016)

6. Urban assessments using city statistics in EEA
‘Air Quality in Europe – 2018 report’
‘Europe’s urban air quality – re-assessing implementation challenges in cities’ (2018)
‘Unequal exposure and unequal impacts: social vulnerability to air pollution, noise and extreme temperatures in Europe’ (2018)
ETC/ULS report on urban typologies (2018)
Urban waste water treatment (indicator and map)
Forthcoming ‘Environmental Sustainability In Cities’ (ESIC) report 2020 (cross-cutting)

7. LULC indicators: (net) land take
change in the amount of agricultural, forest and other semi-natural and natural land taken by urban and other artificial land development
balance between taken and recultivated land is net land take – the concept behind the EU ’no net land take’ target
Currently based on CLC, i.e. 6 year intervals
CLC+ will increase update frequency substantially
Planned to use Urban Atlas for higher resolution
Complement to SDG15 indicator “Artificial land cover” (sdg_15_30)

8. LULC indicators: Imperviousness and change
yearly average imperviousness change between two reference years, as measured by imperviousness change products
Based on Copernicus HRL Imperviousness layer, i.e. with a 3 year interval
Time series available since 2006

9. LULC indicators: Land recycling
indicator addresses the use of urban land for further urban development, whether that urban land is currently in use or not
comprises two concepts of urban development: land recycling and land densification.
Currently based on Urban Atlas, i.e. 6 year intervals

10. LULC indicators and data
Landscape fragmentation pressure (indicator) , currently in update
Urban sprawl indicator in discussion (method published in 2016)
Share of green urban areas/N2K sites within FUAs (e.g. the urban GI map viewer)

11. Air quality – indices and indicators
EEA European Air Quality Index (
provides information on the current AQ situation (up-to-the minute data) based on measurements from more than AQ monitoring stations across Europe
EEA indicator on exceedance of air quality standards in urban areas (CSI 004, AIR 003)
shows the fraction of the EU-28 urban population that is potentially exposed to ambient air concentrations of certain pollutants (PM2.5, PM10, O3, NO2, SO2 and BaP) that are in excess of the EU limit or target values (EU, 2004, 2008) and WHO Guidelines (WHO, 2000, 2006).

12. Air quality – reports (1)
“Air Quality in Europe – 2018 report”
provides an analysis of progress towards meeting the quality standards in the EU Air Quality Directive, as well as the WHO air quality guidelines
“Europe’s urban air quality – re-assessing implementation challenges in cities” (EEA Report No 24/2018)
analyses the implementation of EU air quality legislation at the urban level and identifies some of the reasons behind persistent air quality problems in cities

13. Air quality – reports (2)
“Unequal exposure and unequal impacts: social vulnerability to air pollution, noise and extreme temperatures in Europe” (EEA Report No 22/2018)
draws attention to the close links between social and environmental problems across Europe
explored the exposure of socially deprived communities to multiple stressors in urban areas, using indicators of social vulnerability from the Urban Audit cities data for  data was not sufficiently fine  improved access to timely socio-economic data at higher resolutions is required

14. People exposed to noise inside agglomerations
Information reported by Member States under the Environmental Noise Directive /2002/49/EC)
Number of people exposed to different noise sources
Road (major roads are also differentiated)
Rail
Airport
Industry
Reporting frequency (every 5 years)
2007, 2012, 2017
Agglomeration
“agglomeration shall mean part of a territory, delimited by the Member State, having a population in excess of persons and a population density such that the Member State considers it to be an urbanised area” Environmental Noise Directive (2002/49/EC)
In practice, about 63% of agglomerations have the same delineation as Urban Audit. Major differences in CZ, FR, HU, LV, MT, NO, SI and UK.

15. People exposed to noise inside agglomerations

16. Urban (waste) water
Several data collections/indicators exist or have been produced/are being provided, such as
Water data centre
Waterbase (water quantity)
WISE WFD reference spatial data
Urban waste water treatment indicator (CSI 024, WAT 005, based on Eurostat data “t_env_wat”), statistics/data in relation to various sizes of agglomerations
Rivers and lakes in cities report
But none of those information is city-specific

17. Urban adaptation
“Urban adaptation in Europe” reports (2012 and 2016), development of urban adaptation data and parameters
C3S work on climate change impact related indicators for urban areas (e.g.
Intensity of UHI (micro-scale mapping)
Tested for around 100 urban Audit cities
So far planned as 1-off project

18. Urban adaptation
Climate-ADAPT Urban Adaptation Map Viewer (
Physical parameters of cities (e.g. time series of share of green urban areas, sealed surfaces)
Exposure to risks of flooding (based on JRC LISFLOOD) and forest fires (based on JRC EFFIS data)
Socio-economic parameters/social vulnerability (e.g. share of elderly people)  mostly based on Urban Audit data, combined with EEA data
Status of adaptation planning/preparedness (e.g. adaptation plan existing, signatories and participation to CoM, DRR initiatives)

19. Thank you for listening!
For further questions:
Andrus Meiner,
Eva Ivits,
Mirko Gregor,