Suchergebnisse

AbstractThis study provides a quantitative analisis of the interactions between urban and rural areas and related territorial disparities in the European Union (EU). Relevant societal themes such as population changes, access to services, broadband internet connectivity, house prices, tourism and land‐use/cover flows are examined by mean of indicators computed with the most recent data at the highest spatial resolution. The degree of urbanization (cities, towns and suburbs, rural areas) is used to identify territorial differences and to compare EU regions. Results show that rural and remote areas are lagging in terms of relevant territorial assets compared with more urbanized typologies, with strong variations from region to region depending on the analysed theme. The study provides quantitative and graphical information by applying a descriptive statistical analysis of the indicators and a spatial multicriteria assessment to help with decision‐making processes. It concludes by summarizing the most important outcomes with a set of policy recommendations.

Green infrastructure (GI), a network of nature, semi-natural areas and green space, delivers essential ecosystem services which underpin human well-being and quality of life. Maintaining ecosystem services through the development of GI is therefore increasingly recognized by policies as a strategy to cope with potentially changing conditions in the future. This paper assessed how current trends of land-use change have an impact on the aggregated provision of eight ecosystem services at the regional scale of the European Union, measured by the Total Ecosystem Services Index (TESI8). Moreover, the paper reports how further implementation of GI across Europe can help maintain ecosystem services at baseline levels. Current demographic, economic and agricultural trends, which affect land use, were derived from the so called Reference Scenario. This scenario is established by the European Commission to assess the impact of energy and climate policy up to 2050. Under the Reference Scenario, economic growth, coupled with the total population, stimulates increasing urban and industrial expansion. TESI8 is expected to decrease across Europe between 0 and 5 % by 2020 and between 10 and 15 % by 2050 relative to the base year 2010. Based on regression analysis, we estimated that every additional percent increase of the proportion of artificial land needs to be compensated with an increase of 2.2 % of land that qualifies as green infrastructure in order to maintain ecosystem services at 2010 levels.