This web map viewer shows land take in the EEA-39 countries for the periods 2000-2006, 2006-2012, 2012-2018 and 2000-2018. Select the 'Land take: extend below' layers icon in the upper right corner to switch between the various periods.
The land take indicator addresses the change in the area of agricultural, forest and other semi-natural land taken for urban and other artificial land development. Land take includes areas sealed by construction and urban infrastructure, as well as urban green areas, and sport and leisure facilities.
For visualisation purposes, the original 100 m spatial resolution data sets were re-sampled to a 10 km2 grid. The datasets were produced using the Corine Land Cover accounting layers.
The main drivers of land take are grouped in processes resulting in the extension of:
- housing, services and recreation;
- industrial and commercial sites;
- transport networks and infrastructures;
- mines, quarries and waste dumpsites;
- construction sites.
Note: the reported land take change relates to the extension of urban areas and may also include parcels that were not sealed (e.g. urban green areas, sport and leisure facilities). This is, in particular, the case for discontinuous urban fabric, which is considered as a whole. Similarly, monitoring the indicator with satellite images leads to the exclusion of most linear transport infrastructures, which are too narrow to be observed directly.
