D2.1 – Pan-European synthesis of land use changes overtime

D2.1 – Pan-European synthesis of land use changes overtime was submitted by VU Amsterdam in April 2025. The description of the deliverable is available below and the full deliverable is at the end for download.

This Deliverable is part of Task 2.1, Characterizing historical changes to land use across Europe and their consequences within Work Package 2, Historical Land Use Change.

Based on an analysis of land cover and land management data as well as participatory processes, this report provides a synthesis of land use change across Europe since 1990. Overall, at the EU scale, the amount of land use change is limited, but its strong spatial clustering, leads to profound local impacts. Agricultural intensity has shown polarization, with already intensive areas becoming more intense and less intensive areas de-intensifying. This trend has been accompanied by an expansion of natural areas, resulting in an increased separation between human activities and nature-like land cover Consequently, this separation is likely reducing the benefits humans derive from nature.

A specific inventory has been done about the scope and extent of novel land uses. Novel land use includes land use types that are unprecedented or emerging, or previously not of major importance in the given region. The use of the land and landscape undergo extreme transformations, resulting in either the provision of entirely different ecosystem services or a fundamentally different mode of operation. In many cases, its ecological function changes. The associated changes can be fast, have a profound impact on the ecosystem, alter the functioning of the land or have a large emotional impact. Emerging categories of novel land uses, such as recreational landscapes, renewable energy landscapes, agricultural land with novel crops, landscapes for climate adaptation, logistics and digital landscapes, and rewilded landscapes, each introduce new ways of engaging with and benefiting from the land, challenging traditional notions of landscape function and value.

Comparing the practice cases shows a wide range in land use change dynamics. The total area percentage undergoing gross change between 1990 and 2018 ranged between 0.3% of the total area in the Parc Ela practice case to 7% in the Kaigu practice case. Comparing dynamics of the main specific land covers shows that built-up area has expanded in all practice case locations, with low amounts (<0.1% increase of area) in the more nature dominated ones (Green Karst, Kaigu peatland) and a 2% gain in the Amsterdam case. Arable land instead shows decreases in the more urban practice cases (Île-de-France, Amsterdam Metropolitan Area, Warsaw Metropolitan Area), and striking gross changes in the more intermediate urban cases (Three Countries Park, Surrey). While the area of complex vegetation patterns net decreased in most practice cases, there was also a lot of gross change in this land cover type. The high gross land cover dynamics were also striking for nature and forests.

Two change trajectories can be distilled from the information about the practice cases. First, several practice case regions are characterized by scale enlargement of agriculture, intensification of agriculture, and rationalization. This often goes together with a decrease in complex vegetation patterns and an increase in forest and nature. The practice cases Three Countries Part, Surrey, Lucca, Green Karst, Warsaw Metropolitan Area, and Kaigu peatland are in this change trajectory. Secondly, a few practice cases do see increasingly complex land use and land cover patterns. This applies to Île-de-France, Nitra, Moravia, and Parc Ela. However, change trajectories are not static and endless; the practice cases Amsterdam Metropolitan Area and Flanders seem to shift from the intensification trajectory to a trajectory of increasing complexity.