Land use planning

Key messages

• Land use planning is identified as one of the most effective processes to facilitate local adaptation to climate change. Existing processes and tools available through the municipal land use planning process in the EU, including official plans, zoning, and/or development permits, assist in minimizing the development risks to a municipality from the predicted impacts of increased floods, wildfires, landslides, and/or other natural hazards due to a changing climate.

Impacts, vulnerabilities and risks

Europe is one of the most intensively used continents on the globe. It has the highest proportion of land (up to 80 %) used for settlement, production systems (in particular agriculture and forestry) and infrastructure. However, conflicting land-use demands often arise, requiring decisions that involve hard trade-offs.

Land take, urban sprawl and economic activities lead to habitat fragmentation, decreasing the resilience of ecosystems. Fragmentation affects all areas of Europe, even very sparsely populated ones. Monitoring fragmentation supports policy actions that aim to ensure remaining habitats can support biodiversity.

Land use planning is identified as one of the most effective processes to facilitate local adaptation to climate change. Existing processes and tools available through the municipal land use planning process in the EU, including official plans, zoning, and/or development permits, assist in minimizing the development risks to a municipality from the predicted impacts of increased floods, wildfires, landslides, and/or other natural hazards due to a changing climate.

Policy framework

Land-use planning and management decisions are usually taken at local or regional level, e.g. as part of urban planning or agricultural and forestry practices. However, the European Commission has a role to play in ensuring that Member States take environmental concerns into account in their land-use development plans and practice integrated land management. For example the application of the Strategic Environmental Assessment Directive and the Environmental Impact Assessment Directive but also sector regulations such as the Water Framework Directive, the Floods Directive, the Common Agricultural Policy, TEN-T are having an impact on the local land use policies.

The way we use our land has the biggest impact on our greenhouse gas emissions. More than half of our gross greenhouse gas emissions (methane, nitrous dioxide and carbon dioxide) are from agriculture. For example, livestock rearing is responsible for a high share of our total methane emissions. In July 2021, the European Commission adopted a series of legislative proposals setting out how it intends to achieve climate neutrality in the EU by 2050, including the intermediate target of an at least 55% net reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. The package proposes to revise several pieces of EU climate legislation, including the transport and land use legislation.

Under current EU legislation adopted in May 2018, EU Member States must ensure that accounted greenhouse gas emissions from land use, land use change or forestry are balanced by at least an equivalent accounted removal of CO₂ from the atmosphere in the period 2021 to 2030. The LULUCF Regulation implements the agreement between EU leaders in October 2014 that all sectors should contribute to the EU's 2030 emission reduction target, including the land use sector.

European economies and human wellbeing depend on natural resources, including raw materials and space (land resources), as well as environmental conditions favourable to the provision of clean air, water and healthy food. The 8th Environmental Action Programme sets as one of the priority objectives a “continuous progress in enhancing and mainstreaming adaptive capacity, including on the basis of ecosystem approaches, strengthening resilience and adaptation and reducing the vulnerability of the environment, society and all sectors of the economy to climate change, while improving prevention of, and preparedness for, weather- and climate-related disasters”. One of the enabling conditions to attain the priority objectives is addressing land degradation and ensuring the protection and sustainable use of soil.

Improving the knowledge base

The 2024 European Climate Risk Assessment provides a comprehensive assessment of the major climate risks facing Europe today and in the future. It identifies 36 major climate risks that threaten our energy and food security, ecosystems, infrastructure, water resources, financial systems, and people’s health also considering the risk for the land use planning sector.

The Copernicus Land Monitoring Service provides remote sensing data on Land Cover and Land Cover Changes. The Land Service is divided into four main components of which two are most important related to land use:

• The Pan European service provides information about land cover and land use and its changes, as well as bio-geophysical parameters at European scale at high resolution. The pan-European component is coordinated by the European Environment Agency (EEA) and produces CORINE Land Cover datasets, High Resolution Layers, Biophysical parameters and European Ground Motion Service. The CORINE Land Cover is provided for 1990, 2000, 2006, 2012, and 2018. This vector-based dataset includes 44 land cover and land use classes. The time-series also includes a land change layer, highlighting changes in land cover and land-use.
• The Local service focuses on different hotspots, i.e. areas that are prone to specific environmental challenges and problems. The local component is coordinated by the European Environment Agency and aims to provide specific and more detailed information that is complementary to the information obtained through the Pan-European component. The local component focuses on different hotspots, i.e. areas that are prone to specific environmental challenges and problems.

Additional Copernicus data sets, such as Imperviousness and other high-resolution thematic layers, and the Urban Atlas have been developed to complement Corine Land Cover time series data and are used for further assessments such as land recycling and landscape fragmentation.

The main EEA data source is the Copernicus land monitoring service, which includes the Corine Land Cover data set that was produced for 1990, 2000, 2006, 2012 and 2018 and is based on cooperation with EEA member and collaborating countries and the Copernicus programme. It is the basis for the Land take indicator, for example. The EEA is receiving technical support from the European Topic Centre on Urban, Land and Soil Systems (ETC/ULS).