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Abstract. 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.
Cities and urban areas in Europe are very heterogeneous because of their geographic situations, climate, heritage and trajectory, activities, governance and urban management, population, etc. In order to better understand European urban systems despite the diversity of urban characteristics across Europe and taking into account its complexity, the European Environment Agency (EEA) and its European Topic Centre on Urban, Land and Soil systems (ETC-ULS) are developing a methodology to implement a comprehensive and integrated analysis of sustainability of a large number of very diverse cities. This paper reveals the first results of the ongoing project on "City Typologies in Europe". With this aim, the concept of a city typology was elaborated and tested using existing and relevant data on the urban system at European level. 385 European cities were classified to identify different clusters which are derived from 59 indicators under different domains (economic, social and environmental) that reflect the major city characteristics. The objective of this typology is to show the differences and similarities of the huge diversity of European cities by synthesizing available and comparable information. By reclassifying cities into groups, representative cities (role-models) will be identified for each cluster. Since cities are the key players in minimizing the use of resources and developing the circular economic model and are also crucial for the quality of life and well-being of cities' residents, analyzing those
Land, and here in particular soil, is a finite and essentially non-renewable resource. EU-wide, land 8 take, i.e. the increase of settlement area over time, consumes more than 1000 km² annually of which half is 9 actually sealed and, hence, lost under impermeable surfaces. Land take and in particular soil sealing has 10 already been identified as one of the major soil threats in the 2006 EC Communication "Towards a Thematic 11 Strategy on Soil Protection" and the Soil Thematic Strategy, and has been confirmed as such in the report on 12 the implementation of this strategy. The aim of this study is to relate the potential of land for a particular use 13 in a given region with the actual land use. This allows evaluating whether land (especially the soil dimension) 14 is used according to its (theoretical) potential. To this aim, the impact of several land cover flows related to 15 urban development on soils with a good, average and poor production potential were assessed and mapped. 16Thus, the amount and quality (potential for agricultural production) of agricultural land lost between the years 17 2000 and 2006 was identified. In addition, areas with high productivity potential around urban areas, 18 indicating areas of potential future land use conflicts for Europe, were identified.19 1 Introduction 20 21 Land use in Europe has changed drastically during the last fifty years, primarily in relation to the betterment 22 of human well-being and economic development, while unfortunately causing serious environmental problems 23 such as urban sprawl, soil sealing, loss of biodiversity, soil erosion, soil degradation, floods or desertification. 24The changes in land use can also be interpreted as changes in the resources, services and goods which soils 25 offer to us; moreover, the type of land use change varies among different types of regions. Smith et al. 26(2015) describe the effects of land use changes (increased change of agriculture to urban) on different 27 ecosystem services that are provided by soil decreased biomass and decreased availability of water for 28 agricultural use (provisioning services); decreased infiltration, storage, and soil-mediated water regulation 29 (regulating services); decreased genetic diversity (supporting service); and decreased natural environment 30 (cultural service).
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