Land use - Drivers and pressures (Croatia)

The load on space is best evidenced by intensified building activities in settlements, urbanisation of coastal zone, changes of surfaces and fragmentation of space. The major changes in surfaces have happened due to reduction in agricultural land and increase in artificial surfaces. It could be, however, concluded that in comparison to other EU countries Croatia has not suffered major changes during the last thirty odd years. Although the transport and energy infrastructures occupy not more than 2.42% of the national land area, the increase in the period under consideration is significant, which is in line with the global trends. This is most reflected in increase in road network density, while the area occupied by marinas doubled between 1999 and 2008. However, the trend was stopped in 2007.

Due to the modern way of life and work, total urbanised surfaces in towns and cities have been on increase. As a consequence, the population increase trend has been recorded in metropolitan and suburban areas, and in settlements located alongside the roads and coastline. However, the Croatian urban settlement density is not high - 2.2 settlement per 1,000 km² only. Although it is clear that the load on urban agglomerations has not stopped, the population rate in Croatia is still in decline. The available data, based on statistical estimates, indicate that the number of inhabitants in 2008 was by 2% lower than in 2001. The estimate for the reporting period indicates that Croatia has a natural decrease in population of -1.9 per 1,000 inhabitants.

According to 2001 Census data, 3,065,590 inhabitants or 69.1 % of the total population lived in local self-government units. The average population density is 78.4 inhabitants/km². The occupation and spatial distribution of business, service and other industries are a function of polycentric and corridor development alongside transport systems and the coastal zones.

The forest fires pose a major challenge facing the forest management sector. In the period 2005-2008, outbreak of 943 fires was recorded and 35,248 ha of forest and forest land was fire-affected.

Local soil contamination is encountered in areas of intensive industrial activity, inadequate dump sites, mining and military activity, as a consequence of various incidents, and the like. A total of 2,264 potentially contaminated sites were identified in 2008.

The proportion of agricultural soil areas with high to moderate potential or real risk of water erosion is 46.36 %. The proportion of soil under forests with high to moderate potential risk is 71.33 % while those at real moderate risk account for 44.82%.

Areas used for transport and energy infrastructure outside settlements occupy 2.42 % of the land area of the national territory, i.e. 308.5 m² per capita. The density of the road network was 51.8 km/100 km² of the territory in 2008. Number of motor vehicles and road transport volume is increasing, while rail and maritime transport is stagnating. The growth of road transport is accompanied by a rise in the number of accidents.