Land use monitoring and land take in international comparison

The high land take rate is a problem throughout Europe. The EU demands that land take will be reduced to net zero until the year 2050 (no net land take target). However, land take in Europe is recorded at national level using different methods. Depending on whether the surveys are based on aerial photo data or cadastral data, the results differ significantly in some cases. In a research project by the German Environment Agency, selected countries were used to calculate how large these deviations can be and why national progress in reducing land take can hardly be compared.