Indicators Engineering for Land Uptake and Agricultural Loss. A Study in European Countries

Soil and its associated ecosystem services are indispensable resources for human survival on the planet. Current models of economic and social development exert unprecedented pressures and demands on the land, creating an unsustainable imbalance. The objective of this work is to assess the land use changes that have occurred in EU countries from 1990 to 2018 through CORINE Land Cover. Particular attention has been paid to the urban conversion of soils to agricultural use, as primary production represents one of the most tangible ecosystem services provided by soils, the quantification of which is complex due to the synergistic effect between them. The study has analyzed and evaluated the agricultural losses resulting from urbanization for all EU countries and produced an economic estimate of these losses. The results show that the prevailing transformations are those of anthropogenic origin and in particular urbanization at the expense of agricultural areas, although with different drive forces in the various countries. The importance of knowing the extent of this phenomenon lies in the possibility of implementing targeted corrective actions aimed at limiting, mitigating and compensating the effects of anthropogenic soil transformations.