Suchergebnisse

Land, and in particular soil, is a finite and essentially non-renewable resource. Across the European Union, land take, i.e. the increase of settlement area over time, annually consumes more than 1000 km 2 of which half is actually sealed and hence lost under impermeable surfaces. Land take, and in particular soil sealing, has already been identified as one of the major soil threats in the 2006 European Commission Communication Towards a Thematic Strategy on Soil Protection and the Soil Thematic Strategy and has been confirmed as such in the report on the implementation of this strategy. The aim of this study is to relate the potential of land for a particular use in a given region with the actual land use. This allows evaluating whether land (especially the soil dimension) is used according to its (theoretical) potential. To this aim, the impact of several land cover flows related to urban development on soils with good, average, and poor production potentials were assessed and mapped. Thus, the amount and quality (potential for agricultural production) of arable land lost between the years 2000 and 2006 was identified. In addition, areas with high productivity potential around urban areas, indicating areas of potential future land use conflicts for Europe, were identified.

Land, and in particular soil, is a finite and essentially non-renewable resource. Across the European Union, land take, i.e. the increase of settlement area over time, annually consumes more than 1000 km2 of which half is actually sealed and hence lost under impermeable surfaces. Land take, and in particular soil sealing, has already been identified as one of the major soil threats in the 2006 European Commission Communication Towards a Thematic Strategy on Soil Protection and the Soil Thematic Strategy and has been confirmed as such in the report on the implementation of this strategy. The aim of this study is to relate the potential of land for a particular use in a given region with the actual land use. This allows evaluating whether land (especially the soil dimension) is used according to its (theoretical) potential. To this aim, the impact of several land cover flows related to urban development on soils with good, average, and poor production potentials were assessed and mapped. Thus, the amount and quality (potential for agricultural production) of arable land lost between the years 2000 and 2006 was identified. In addition, areas with high productivity potential around urban areas, indicating areas of potential future land use conflicts for Europe, were identified.

The negative impacts of soil sealing are numerous, from withdrawing fertile soil from biomass production to modifying the microclimate and decreasing biodiversity. Many of the processes are interrelated and propagate further undesirable consequences from local to global levels. Three issues are especially important from the viewpoint of multiscale ecological cycles and consequent environmental impacts. One is soil organic carbon (SOC), the other is soil water management and the third is biomass productivity. In this study, we assessed the lost carbon sequestration potential due to soil sealing in functional Urban Areas (FUAs) of Europe, the potential effect of soil sealing on the topsoil to hold water to its full capacity and the loss of biomass productivity potential. Findings revealed that one-fifth of the area of soil that became sealed between 2012 and 2018 was of high productivity potential, and almost two-thirds was of medium productivity potential. New soil sealing caused a loss of carbon sequestration potential estimated at 4 million tons of carbon of the FUAs and also caused an estimated potential loss of water-holding capacity of 668 million m3.