1. A ‘Land’ focus –assessments & information
UK-Land cover event, July 1, 2015, Leicester
Ronan Uhel
Head of Programme ‘Natural Systems and Vulnerability’

2. Vision of the 7th EU Environment Action Programme
‘In 2050, we live well, within the planet's ecological limits.
Our prosperity and healthy environment stem from an innovative, circular economy where nothing is wasted and where natural resources are managed sustainably, and biodiversity is protected, valued and restored in ways that enhance our society's resilience. Our low-carbon growth has long been decoupled from resource use, setting the pace for a global safe and sustainable society.’
Source: 7th EU Environment Action Programme

3. The EU policy context: no ‘Land’ explicit objectives
Source: EEA Multiannual Work Programme 2014–2018

4. EU policy context: Land and Soil ‘soft’ measures, large financing support?
Soil Thematic Strategy [COM(2006) 231]
Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) – provisions for soil
EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2020 [COM(2011) 244]
Europe ‘Roadmap to a Resource Efficient Europe’ [COM(2011) 571]
EU Territorial Agenda and Action Plan
UN Rio+20 Summit outcome [A/RES/66/288] ‘The future we want’
EU 7EAP ‘Living well, within the limits of our planet’ [Decision 1386/2013/EU]’
Planned EC Communication on land as a resource
Action 5 under target 2 of the Biodiversity Strategy to 2020:
”Member States, with the assistance of the Commission, will map and assess the state of ecosystems and their services in their national territory by 2014, assess the economic value of such services, and promote the integration of these values into accounting and reporting systems at EU and national level by 2020.”
Relevance of EU policies to soils
Soil Thematic Strategy; proposed Soil Framework Directive withdrawn in 2014
CAP
Soil for ecosystem and ecosystem service assessment:
EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2020 [COM(2011) 244]:
Target 2 ’ Maintain and restore ecosystems and their services’,
Action 5 ‘Improve knowledge of ecosystems and their services in the EU’
EC ‘Roadmap to a Resource Efficient Europe’
Land and soils milestone – by 2020:
EU policies take account of their (in)direct impact on land use in the EU, and globally
Rate of land take on track with aim of no net land take by 2050
Soil erosion reduced
Organic matter increased
Remedial work on contaminated sites well underway
‘Guidelines on best practice to limit, mitigate or compensate soil sealing’ [SWD(2012) 101]
EU 7th EAP: General Union Environment Action Programme to 2020 ‘Living well within the limits of our planet’ – particularly - thematic priority objective 1 ‘To protect, conserve and enhance the Union’s natural capital
Planned EC Communication ‘Land as a resource’
Globally: UN Rio+20 Summit outcome ‘The future we want’: land-degradation-neutral world in the context of sustainable development’ [A/RES/66/288]
Refer to absence of targets
at EU level, except for ‘no net land take’ in 7 EAP, and
globally, except for ‘land-degradation-neutral world in the context of sustainable development’
Regional & Cohesion funds
Agriculture and Rural funds
LIFE projects
URBACT III

5. SOER 2015 – looking into a transition agenda
A comprehensive assessment of past trends and future outlooks and of opportunities to recalibrate policies, knowledge, investments and innovations in line with the long-term vision of the 7th EAP.
SOER 2015 Synthesis report
SOER 2015 Assessment of global megatrends
11 briefings
Global
megatrends
25 briefings
European
briefings
9 briefings
Cross-country
comparisons
39+3 briefings
Countries and regions

6. Progress to policy targets
Thematic priority objective 1: Protecting, conserving and enhancing natural capital
Past (5–10 year) trends
Progress to policy targets
Terrestrial and freshwater biodiversity 
Land use and soil functions
No target 
Ecological status of freshwater bodies 
Water quality and nutrient loading   
Air pollution and its ecosystem impacts
Marine and coastal biodiversity
Climate change impacts on ecosystems
No target
20+ years outlook
Largely on track
Partially on track
Largely not on track   
Improving trends dominate
Trends show mixed picture
Deteriorating trends dominate
Source: EEA. SOER 2015 Synthesis report.

7. Progress to policy targets
Thematic priority objective 2: Resource efficiency and the low-carbon economy
Past (5–10 year) trends
Progress to policy targets
Material resource efficiency and material use
No target
Waste management 
Greenhouse gas emissions and climate change mitigation
 / 
Energy consumption and fossil fuel use    
Transport demand and related environmental impacts
Industrial pollution to air, soil and water
Water use and water quantity stress 
20+ years outlook
Largely on track
Partially on track
Largely not on track   
Improving trends dominate
Trends show mixed picture
Deteriorating trends dominate
Source: EEA. SOER 2015 Synthesis report.

8. Progress to policy targets
Thematic priority objective 3: Safeguarding from environmental risks to health
Past (5–10 year) trends
Progress to policy targets
Water pollution and related environmental health risks
 / 
Air pollution and related environmental health risks 
Noise pollution (especially in urban areas)
Urban systems and grey infrastructure   
No target 
Climate change and related environmental health risks
Chemicals and related environmental health risks
 / 
20+ years outlook /    
Largely on track
Partially on track
Largely not on track   
Improving trends dominate
Trends show mixed picture
Deteriorating trends dominate
Source: EEA. SOER 2015 Synthesis report.

9. The overall picture: Efficiency improvements have not secured long-term resilience
Protecting, conserving
and enhancing natural capital
Resource efficiency
and the low-carbon
economy
Safeguarding from
environmental risks to health
Past (5–10) year trends
20+ years
outlook /
Improving trends dominate
Trends show mixed picture
Deteriorating trends dominate
Source: EEA. SOER 2015 Synthesis report.

10. Land system Components and interactions
‘Across Europe and the world, accelerating rates of urbanisation, changing demographic and diet patterns, technological changes, deepening market integration, and climate change place unprecedented demands on land. Yet the availability of land is finite. This imbalance is unsustainable. Land must therefore be 'governed' in such a way as to preserve its potential to deliver goods and services.
These services are lost or weakened (due to disrupted water and nutrient cycles) when land is sealed for the development of housing, industry, commerce, or transport infrastructure. Some forms of land use and management, e.g. driven by agricultural intensification and abandonment, result in degradation processes, like soil erosion, soil organic matter decline, habitat loss, or reduced nutrient cycling. Land fragmentation exacerbates these effects.
Such negative impacts can be referred to as dysfunctions and disservices and can further affect the economy or human health. They ought to be a cause of concern as the land medium integrates three spatial dimensions: the two horizontal ones of land cover/land use, and the third, the vertical one of soil and the underlying geology. Soil properties thus largely define the quality of land. The land system then embodies the relationship between human activities on land, socio-economic conditions, the natural environment, and the systems of governance that manage these interactions.[1] Linking its components through cause and effect, it thus refers to the chain of driving forces, pressures, state, impacts, and responses to which the land is subject (Figure 1).’
© Hristina Hristova,/EEA
© Victor Troyanov, Environment & Me /EEA
Source: EEA, 2015, The European Environment: State & Outlook 2015 (SOER 2015), European briefing ‘Land systems’.

11. The ‘land’ services provide benefits to people….
Local climate regulation
Flood regulation
Timber production
Carbon sequestration
Habitat services
Recreation
Aestetic values
Production of food
These services provide benefits to people through:
local climate regulation
Flood regulation
Timber production
Carbon sequestration
Habitat services
Production of food
Aestretic values
Recration
Etc.
Place / Ecosystem-based management…
…Landscape ecology

12. Food supply systems….

13. Pressure on soil and ecosystem functioning
‘Land take’
Pressure on soil and ecosystem functioning
‘The degree to which society can benefit from soils is dependent on how it uses and manages them. Soils that are sealed for urban development or transport infrastructure lose most of their functions due to disrupted water, nutrient, and biological cycles. This loss is close to irreversible.
Equally, soils can be degraded by the interplay of human and natural processes that cause decline in organic matter and biodiversity, compaction, and erosion by wind and water. Mineral or groundwater extraction can lead to pollution and affect soil stability, even causing subsidence in some urban areas; while large-scale drilling for shale gas production may add to existing contamination processes.
These phenomena affect the delivery of soil-based ecosystem services and can be costly or difficult to resolve. In recognition of these pressures and the importance of soil functions, the European Commission launched a Thematic Strategy on soil, which called for the protection and sustainable use of soil[2] while highlighting several vital soil functions: providing biomass and raw materials; storing, filtering and transforming substances; and acting as a carbon and biodiversity pool, as a platform for human activities and the landscape, and as an archive of heritage.
Soils received further recognition when the UN Rio+20 Summit highlighted soil degradation as part of land degradation, and called for a land-degradation-neutral world in the context of sustainable development, a goal to which the EU subscribed. This target is reiterated in the European Union's 7th Environment Action Programme (7th EAP).
Converting broad policy positions into action requires increased efforts and related targets to reduce soil erosion, to increase soil organic matter and preserve soil biodiversity, to remediate contaminated sites, and to limit soil sealing.’
‘The increased share of artificial areas is essentially the result of 'land take',[14] close to half of which was driven by demand for housing, services, and recreation between 2000 and 2006.[10] While land thus provides space for human activities, land take also implies substituting the original (semi-)natural land cover to varying degrees with impervious surfaces. Thus, the connection with natural cycles is lost and the services delivered by soils, including those important in the face of climate change mitigation and adaptation, are curtailed (see also SOER 2015 briefing on soil). Between 2000 and 2006, almost half of the land take came at the expense of arable farmland and permanent crops (EEA Land take indicator). Land take thus also puts pressure on the biomass production potential of the land resource. Further, development of transportation infrastructure and built-up areas leads to landscape fragmentation. Fragmentation has a number of ecological effects, such as the decline and loss of wildlife populations, an increasing endangerment of species, changed water regimes, and a change in recreational quality of landscapes.[15]’
© Roger Langohr
© Victor Troyanov, Environment & Me /EEA
Source: EEA, 2015, The European Environment: State & Outlook 2015 (SOER 2015), European briefing ‘Soil’.

14. But with sprawling cities like Helsinki we are also facing ever-growing urban mobility
problems. During past 20 years, we experience 4 times more new cars
than new babies in cities.
The number of kilometres travelled in urban areas by road transport is
predicted to rise up to 40 % by 2030 compared to 1995.
10,000 km of highways built between in the EU;
12,000 km is financed (20bn € per year) over EU budget
to connect urban nodes in new Member States.

15. Europe is the most fragmented
...this together with increased urbanisation leads to higher fragmentation
Europe is the most fragmented
continent on Earth
This together with increased urbanisation leads to higher
fragmentation in Europe. Europe is the most fragmented continent on Earth.
The map show the degree of landscape fragmentation in 2009.
The more brown the areas get the more intense the artificial developments are
in terms of urban infrastructure. The fragmentation of the landscape through
infrastructure has a negative impact on ecosystems and species habitats.
Fragmentation is concentrated in central western Europe, where only small patches
of open landscapes remain. Low landscape fragmentation, in contrast, cannot only
be observed in regions with low population density, but also in large parts of northern,
eastern and southern Europe.
The more brown the areas are the more intense the artificial developments – especially in central and western Europe…

16. Conflicting growing demand for space – new dominant landscapes?

17. Conflicting growing demand for space – new dominant landscapes?

18. Green Infrastructure? It enhances Europe's natural capital
Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. My name is Gorm Dige and I am from the European
Environment Agency locted in Copenhagen, Denmark. I am very pleased to be here
and I would like to thank the ”Ecosystem Conservation Society-Japan”
for inviting me to this interesting event which will provide me
with the opportunity to share some of our experiences and thoughts on green
infrastructure currently taking place in Europe. I also look forward to learn about
developments in Japan within this field.
This image is not from Europe but Chiago City Hall in the U.S . where the mayor has established
a green space on top of the building. It collects water and has brought biodiversity back.
The mayor also makes his own honney which he donate to his visitors. This example is a good
illustration on how to think outside the box and bring greening into urban design.
Think about it - it has a strong message and changes peoples mind set.
…it provides ecological, economic and social benefits through natural solutions – and is a key tool to sustainable spatial planning and development

19. So, mostly a question of how we use the natural capital
Source: Foley et al., 2005 Science Vol. 309

20. What is meant by Natural capital

21. …using the green economy as an integrating framework
Source: EEA.

22. Improve the Knowledge base European ecosystem assessment Concept, data, and implementation

23. Mapping and Assessing Ecosystems and their Services (EU MAES initiative) - Analytical Framework
Source:

24. European ecosystem map EUNIS habitat – Land cover – Reference data
Source: ETC/SIA 2014

25. European ecosystem map - Ecosystem distribution
Source: ETC/SIA 2014

26. Protection status of ecosystems under Natura 2000
Source: ETC/ULS 2015

27. Consequences on biodiversity in Europe
50% of wetlands and high-nature-value farmland gone
40% of all European bird species have unfavourable conservation status
Fragmentation and unsustainable land-use has consequences
on biodiversity in Europe.
50% of wetlands and high-nature-value farmland is gone.
40% of all European bird species have unfavourable conservation
status.
According EU Health Check in % of species and up to 80%
of habitats have unfavourable conservation status.
Conservation status of habitat types
EU Health Check 2009
« 50% of species and up to 80% of habitats have unfavourable conservation status »

28. State of Nature 2015 – EU Habitats and Birds Directives
Over 17,000 datasets on individual species and habitats used to assess the status of around:
450 wild bird species
230 habitat types
more than 1,200 other species of European importance.
© Dare Ferjan, Environment & Me /EEA
EEA technical analysis supporting the European Commission Composite Report

29. EU conservation status (Habitats Directive) - 2007-2012
Species
© Dare Ferjan, Environment & Me /EEA
Source: EEA. State of Nature report, 2015.
Selection of EU habitats and species – e.g. 50% of wetlands and high-nature-value
farmland gone

30. Distance to Target 1 of the EU Biodiversity Strategy (2020)
Need of more effective management of the Natura 2000 network.
So far only 50% of the sites were reported as having comprehensive management plans.
Investment insufficient in some Member States.
Opportunities offered by, for example, the Common Agricultural Policy, the Common Fisheries Policy and the EU Regional Policy have not been fully realised.
© Dare Ferjan, Environment & Me /EEA

31. Conservation status of habitats of European interest
Data sources: EEA. Conservation status of habitat types and species (Article 17, Habitats Directive 92/43/EEC)

32. The influence of Natura 2000 on conservation objectives –some indications
Source: EU Habitats Directive reporting, EC Policy report, 2015

33. Main problems reported by Member States - pressures
Agriculture
Intensification: pesticides, nutrients, overgrazing, fragmentation
Abandonment: lack of management, undergrazing
Changes in hydraulic conditions
Dams, dykes, canalisation
Water abstraction and deviation
Forestry
intensive management
Afforestation
Urbanisation, grey infrastructure
Aquaculture, hunting, trapping, poisoning
© Dare Ferjan, Environment & Me /EEA

34. Trends in drivers and impacts on ecosystems
According MAES classification
© Dare Ferjan, Environment & Me /EEA

35. Getting to integrated & spatially-explicit analysis: the causality chain…
Drivers
agriculture, forestry,
water
management,
settlement
, transport,
industry
, tourism,
etc
Pressures
habitat change,
climate
change,
invasive species,
land use / exploitation,
nutrient & pollution load
State / Condition
ecosystem state and quality
/ structure and functioning
nutrient
condition, habitat
diversity, species
abundance and diversity
Impacts
change/loss
of ecosystem
function, of
biodiversity
Response
maintaining ecosystem
functioning and
biodiversity,
management change,
prevention measures,
protection, nutrient &
pollution reduction

36. …developing ecosystem assessments
Source: Maes et al. (2014)

37. Landscape ecological potential
Towards accounting
Spatially-explicit bio-physical accounting
LAND
Land cover change
Land use change
WATER
Water in soil/runoff
Water quantity
Water use
CARBON
Organic carbon
Land use
Organic carbon flows
BIODIVERSITY
Trends in populations
Landscape ecological potential
Fast track accounts DB

38. Better data -Copernicus land service pan-European & local components
Sealed soil
Corine Land Cover 2012
Forest type
Tree cover density
Grassland
Urban Atlas
Wetlands
Image mosaics
LC Biodiversity
Water bodies

39. Land as a resource – Linking across scales & governance structures
Place-based[4][5] land allocation and management is needed in order to integrate land functions across multiple sectors, sustainability dimensions, and governance levels (global, EU, national, regional and local) (Figure 2). Interaction between various actors is central to such a cooperative process, also a key driver for territorial cohesion as described in the Territorial Agenda of the EU.[6]
The EU policy agenda can thus set a frame to promote place-based planning and solutions that make the most of an area's inherent features. Land decisions should therefore reflect such solutions, while being adapted to the local conditions and assets, including soil, terrain, climate, and communities' knowledge.
© Hristina Hristova,/EEA
© Alex Dumitrescu, Environment & Me /EEA
Source: EEA, 2015, The European Environment: State & Outlook 2015 (SOER 2015), European briefing ‘Land systems’.

40. Explore SOER 2015 online: eea.europa.eu/soer

41. Stay informed about SOER 2015 and receive our products  sign up at:
BACK TO TABLE OF CONTENTS
Stay informed about SOER 2015 and receive our products  sign up at:
Thank you!