Indicators

Monitoring the pressure from soil moisture deficits can warn of potential impacts on plant development and soil health, supporting the assessment of drought-tolerant, resilient and vulnerable ecosystems. In 2000-2019, soil moisture in the growing season was several times below the long-term average in the EEA member countries plus the United Kingdom. The largest soil moisture deficits occurred in 2003, 2017 and 2019, affecting over 1.45 million km 2 in 2019. Soil moisture content was also low in 2012, 2015 and 2018, contributing to increasingly frequent and intense drought pressure.

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For the reference year 2015 ,  85 861 km 2   of the total area covered by the  EEA-39 countries were mapped and categorised as 'sealed surface' in the Copernicus imperviousness product. This corresponds to 1.466 % of the total EEA-39 area. Between 2006 and 2015, soil sealing (imperviousness) in all EEA-39 countries increased  by a total of 3 859 km2 , an annual average increase of 429 km 2 . During this period, the average annual increase in soil sealing relative to country area varied from 0 % to 0.088 %. In 2015, the percentage of a countries' total area that was sealed also varied greatly, with values ranging from 16.17 % (Malta) to 0.07 % (Iceland). The highest sealing values, as a percentage of country area, occurred in small countries with high population densities, while the lowest sealing values can be found in large countries with low population densities. The average annual increase in sealing was 460 km 2 between 2006-2009, increasing to 492 km 2 for the 2009-2012 period and slowing to 334 km 2 for the 2012-2015 period. The slow-down in the sealing increase between the two reference  periods occurred in 31 out of 39 countries. The same trend is visible for sealing figures normalised by the size of the country (the % of the country newly sealed on average annually for the three periods). The most problematic situation occurs in countries where there is already a high percentage of sealing and where the annual rate of increase relative to country area is high. Even more problematic are situations where, for 2012-2015,  the rate of sealing increase is accelerating, in contrast to the general trend of a slowing rate of increase.  

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In 2015, on average, there were around 1.5 fragmented landscape elements per km 2 in the European Union  [1] , a 3.7 % increase compared with 2009. Approximately 1.13 million km 2 , around 28 % of the area of the EU  [1] , was strongly fragmented i n 2015 , a 0.7 % increase compared with 2009. There was less of an increase in fragmented landscape elements and in the area of strongly fragmented landscape between 2012 and 2015 than between 2009 and 2012 (1.4 and 0.18 percentage points, respectively). Arable lands and permanent croplands (around 42 .6 %) and pastures and farmland mosaics (around 40.2 %) were most affected by strong fragmentation pressure in 2015 in the EU. Between 2009 and 2015, however, the largest increase in the area of strongly fragmented landscape was in grasslands/pastures and in farmland mosaics.   Luxembourg (91 %), Belgium (83 %) and Malta (70 %) had the largest proportions of strongly fragmented landscape in 2015 (as a proportion of their country area). The Baltic countries and Finland and Sweden were on average the least fragmented countries in the EU. Between 2009 and 2015, the area of strongly fragmented landscape increased most in Croatia, as well as in Greece, Hungary and Poland. [1]  Romania is excluded because of the poor coverage of fragmentation geometry data in 2009.  

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Land recycling is still low in all European countries: on average, land recycling accounted for only 13.5 % of total land consumption in European cities in the 2006-2012 period. The land use densification process, i.e. when land development makes maximum use of existing infrastructure, accounts for the largest proportion of land recycling. However, in most countries, land take dominates over densification in total land management with the exception of Finland and France. Grey recycling, i.e. internal conversions between residential and/or non-residential land cover types, is secondary to densification, ranging from 14 % to less than 1 % of total land consumption. Land take predominates over grey recycling in total land management in all countries. Green recycling, i.e. the development of green urban areas using previously built-up areas, is an important trend that reverses soil sealing, but it is a marginal process in all countries and, on average, it accounts for only 0.2 % of total land consumption.

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