Abstract
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 km2 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.
Highlights
The changes in land use can be interpreted as changes in the resources, services, and goods that soils offer to us; the type of land use change varies among different types of regions
The distribution of the soils according to their potential for biomass production on arable land per NUTS-3 area can be seen in Fig. 4; the proportions are given in relation to the total area of each individual NUTS-3 region
The potentials and the actual use of the lands were linked, and impact of land take on arable lands with good, average, and poor production potentials were assessed and mapped successfully by this study
Summary
Land use in Europe has changed drastically during the last 50 years, primarily in relation to the betterment of human well-being and economic development, while causing serious environmental problems such as urban sprawl, soil sealing, loss of biodiversity, soil erosion, soil degradation, floods, or desertification.The changes in land use can be interpreted as changes in the resources, services, and goods that soils offer to us; the type of land use change varies among different types of regions. Smith et al (2015) describe the effects of land use changes (increased change of arable to urban) on different ecosystem services that are provided by soil decreased biomass and decreased availability of water for agricultural use (provisioning services); decreased infiltration, storage, and soil-mediated water regulation (regulating services); decreased genetic diversity (supporting service); and decreased natural environment (cultural service).Land use changes are a worldwide issue and the impacts of land use changes are the subject of several studies. Mancosu et al (2015) develop different land use change scenarios and discusses their impacts on the Black Sea region. Parras-Alcántara et al (2013) examine the impacts of land use change on soil carbon and nitrogen in a Mediterranean agricultural area. Adugna and Abegaz (2016) discuss the effects of land use changes on the soil properties in Ethiopia. Wasak and Drewnik (2015) studied the land use effects on soil organic carbon sequestration in calcareous Leptosols in the Tatra Mountains, Poland. Muñoz-Rojas et al (2015) analysed the long time series (1956–2007) impacts of land use and land cover changes on organic carbon stocks in Mediterranean soils. Trabaquini et al (2015) examined the effects of the land use changes of physical soil properties in the Brazilian savanna environment
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