Strategie europee per il contenimento dei consumi di suolo

Europe is one of themost urbanised continents in the world and the expansion of artificial areas is still progressing, despite a limited demographic growth.The driver of this continuous growth area changes in lifestyles, the increased potential for human mobility (leading to the urban sprawl) and also speculative processes.The European Environment Agency, however, points out that urban expansion ismore a reflection of changing lifestyles and consumption patterns rather than an increasing population. Between 1990 and 2000, land take in the EU was around 1.000 km2 per year and settlement areas increased by nearly 6%. From 2000 to 2006, the rate of land take decreased to 920 km2 per year,while the total settlement area increased by a further 3%.This corresponds to an increase of almost 9% between 1990 and 2006 (from176.200 to 191.200 km2). All these processes have an impact on soil, determining its irreversible degradation and preventing the provision of further ecosystemservices. In fact soil provide a wide range of ecosystemservices, fromthe production of food, timber and fiber, to regulation of water and nutrient cycles.With the approval of Soil Thematic Strategy for soil protection, the European Union initiate a process with the aimof protecting this essential and non-renewable resource.This aimhowever is still far to be reached and efforts at national level will be required to be successful in the protection of soil.

GARDI Ciro;  PANAGOS Panagiotis;  MONTANARELLA Luca; 

2014-02-26

Edicom

JRC87036

1994-3327,   

https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC87036,