1.6 Land use and land take

This briefing mainly reviews settlement area increase as captured by LULUCF land use categories reported by EU-27 Member States. Land use leads to substantial environmental impacts, above all in ecologically-valuable areas, such as coastal ones. Converting farmland or forests to settlement areas (e.g. housing, transport and infrastructure) reduces the area available to supply ecosystem products and services.

Land use intensity as well as sustainable land management are important factors to consider. For example, they affect soil and water resources, climate change mitigation and adaptation, and biodiversity. This is not reviewed in detail as part of this briefing.

Key policies

• The European Green Deal includes various objectives that require sustainable land use. In particular, the EU soil strategy for 2030 calls for ‘no net land take by 2050’.
• Appropriate land use and management are also central to achieving other EU policy targets, for example those outlined within the Nature Restoration Regulation or the Water Framework Directive.
• The Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) Regulation sets a net carbon removal target for the land use sector by 2030 to help achieve the EU’s climate goals.

Past trends (10-15 years)

Deteriorating trends/developments dominate

Under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and EU regulations, EU Member States provide greenhouse gas (GHG) inventories every year. For 2005-2023, these data in the LULUCF sector indicate relative changes in total surface area of different land use categories as follows: +14% for settlements, ‑5% for cropland, +4% for forest land, ‑5% for grassland and +1% for wetlands.

The same data indicate that settlements' total land area increased in the EU-27 by 25% since 1990, reaching 6.8% of the land area in the EU in 2023. Vegetation and soil carbon loss due to urbanisation drives related GHG emissions.

The forested area has increased by 8% in the EU since 1990, although the afforestation rate has slowed down since 2005, according to LULUCF sector GHG inventories.

Outlook (10-15 years)

Trends/developments expected to show a mixed picture

Given Europe’s economic trends and policy objectives, land-use demand is expected to continue to increase. EU nature restoration targets require a reduction in land use intensity, and an increase in ecological priority areas and landscape features. Reaching EU renewable energy targets by 2030 (and beyond) will generate extra land-use demands for biomass production, wind farms and photovoltaic panels. It is important, therefore, to explore solutions for multifunctional land use; for example, by combining solar generation with farming use. The technical choices and scale of infrastructure development will strongly influence its impact on semi-natural and agricultural ecosystems. Over the coming decade, land use options will also be under pressure from climate change and its impacts, such as flooding and drought events, changes in temperature and precipitation. Integrated approaches to climate mitigation and adaptation actions are therefore also very important in a land-use context.

Prospects of meeting policy targets, 2030/2050

2030 No specific policy target

2050 Largely not on track to meet targets

Within the EU soil strategy for 2030, the EU has specified a (non-binding) target to reach ‘no net land take by 2050’. Reaching this target requires significant reductions in net land take over coming years. At present, reaching this target is uncertain but unlikely.

It is unclear how the main drivers of land take will change and whether reconverting artificial surfaces to other land uses and nature will increase sufficiently in the future. Current projections by the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission (JRC) indicate a likely expansion of built-up areas in the coming years.

Robustness

Member States’ GHG inventories reported to the UNFCCC and to the EU include, apart from GHG emission estimates, information on land use reported by LULUCF land use categories. However, these datasets are not produced through land use mapping exercises but for the specific purpose of supporting the EU GHG inventory. The inventories are based on different monitoring approaches in each country; there are also slightly different national definitions of LULUCF land use categories. This briefing focuses on just one element of land take (i.e. settlement area increase) using the only currently-updated dataset regarding land take. It is assumed that figures for settlement area increase derived from the LULUCF inventory can serve as a proxy for a more holistic measure of land take.

Charts/maps

Figure 1. Total area for each of the LULUCF land use categories, 1990-2023

Figure 2. Land converted to settlements in the EU-27, 1990-2023