Net land take in cities and commuting zones by land cover category, 2012-2018, EU-27

Note:
- The chart shows the net land take in Functional Urban Areas (FUAs) of the EU-27 region disaggregated by major land cover categories. The FUAs are composed of cities and commuting zones, where cities with over 100.000 inhabitants are considered. Net land take is the mathematical difference of land take and land recultivation. Land take is the process of converting non-artificial surfaces to artificial surfaces whereas land recultivation is the inverse process.
- Cities and their commuting zones are known as Functional Urban Areas (Eurostat, 2018), representing circa 23% of the EU.

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Methodology
Land take is calculated from the Urban Atlas 2012 and 2018 datasets of the Copernicus Land Monitoring Service. Land take is defined in km² summed of each grid cell where between 2012 and 2018 non-artificial urban areas were converted to artificial urban areas. This can happen for example when grasslands or croplands are converted to city parks, parking places, commercial units, etc. Land recultivation is the inverse process, also expressed in km² area. Land take minus recultivation equals the net land take.

Net land take in cities and commuting zones by land cover category, 2012-2018, EU-27

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References and footnotes