Land Consumption and Land Take: Enhancing Conceptual Clarity for Evaluating Spatial Governance in the EU Context

Abstract

Rapid expansion of settlements and related infrastructures is a global trend that comes with severe environmental, economic, and social costs. Steering urbanization toward well-balanced compactness is thus acknowledged as an important strategic orientation in UN Sustainable Development Goal 11 (SDG-11) via the SDG-indicator “Ratio of land consumption rate to population growth rate.” The EU’s simultaneous commitment to being “a frontrunner in implementing […] the SDGs” and to striving for “no net land take until 2050” calls for relating the concepts of land consumption and land take to each other. Drawing on an EU-centred questionnaire study, a focus group and a literature review, we scrutinize definitions of land consumption and land take, seeking to show how they are interrelated, and questioning the comparability of respective indicators. We argue that conceptual clarifications and a bridging of the two notions are much needed, and that the precision required for definitions and applications is context-dependent. While approximate understandings may suffice for general communication and dissemination objectives, accurate and consistent interpretations of the discussed concepts seem indispensable for monitoring and reporting purposes. We propose ways of addressing existing ambiguities and suggest prioritizing the term land take in the EU context. Thereby, we aim to enhance conceptual clarity around land consumption and land take—a precondition for solidly informing respective policies and decisions.

A Landscape Persistence Assessment of Częstochowa Upland: A Case Study of Ogrodzieniec, Poland

“…The isochrones indicating the spatial range of landscape persistence and persistence index can show the scale of "land take". [36] In the case of Ogrodzieniec, the persistence index for settlement landscape is low (0.289), and the spatial analyses indicate that most settlement landscapes were developed in 2007-2014 and industrial landscapes in 2014-2020. However, their percentage share in the municipality area is low but, for settlement landscapes, still growing.…”

“…On the other hand, modern land use associated with the development of buildings and the replacement of natural land cover, on a global scale, implies fragmentation of habitats and an increase in the mosaicism of the landscape, resulting in spatial chaos. Land use changes are widely studied also as a concept of land consumption [35,36]. The isochrones indicating the spatial range of landscape persistence and persistence index can show the scale of "land take".…”

Application of the governance disruptions framework to German agricultural soil policy

“…Also, climate change as a driver of soil degradation, but also soil's role in mitigating climate change has not been addressed in a systematic manner by means of policy instruments, despite initiatives such as 4p1000 (Rumpel et al, 2020) or private soil carbon certification schemes (Wiesmeier et al, 2020). Furthermore, land availability remains an issue, even though options for novel instruments related to land take (Marquard et al, 2020) and rearrangement/reallocation Binder, 2019) have been addressed in the scientific literature.…”

Land recycling, food security and Technosols

“…Trend of rising population and number of urban settlements around the world increases pressure on land take [1][2][3] . Consequently, it is a challenge for coming decades, related to fertile soil conservation, provision of ecosystem services and biodiversity [1,2] . Mainly due to loss of fertile agricultural soils, compromising their role as biomass producers.…”

“…To counteract these shortcomings, the EU promotes land recycling prior to land taking. Since this practice is currently a minority in Europe [1] and many other parts in the world, we analyze whether sealed soils or brownfields can become functionally valid even as biomass producer (urban forestry areas).…”