Reflecting environmental land use needs into EU policy
IEEP, in collaboration with Alterra, has completed a study for DG Environment identifying the major challenges resulting from likely changes in land use in Europe over the next 25 years. The project aimed to develop an approach at the EU level for the protection of four key services, namely the provision of food, water (in terms of quality and quality), soil carbon (in particular soil organic matter) and biodiversity, which are referred to in the report as land services. Biodiversity, although not a service itself, underpins supporting, regulatory, provisioning and cultural services and was treated as a service in this study.
In particular, the report investigated how recent trends and likely future changes in land use in the EU up to 2030 may impact on the land services through four key pressures:
- Soil sealing
- Fragmentation/loss of biodiversity corridors
- Land intensification and marginalisation
- Loss of permanent grassland
The report includes new modelling on the pressures and drivers of land use change, predicting significant changes in the spatial patterns of agricultural land use and intensity of agricultural practices over the next 25 years. The report modelled trends in soil sealing predicting a continuing trend of 1% loss of land per annum due to a high rate of growth of built-up areas. On ecological corridors, an expert workshop was held which brought together experts across the EU to discuss progress in implementing the corridors within ecological networks. Finally, the report provides a set of recommendations that outline how land services might best be protected from the potential future threats identified in the study.
The full report(a very large file)