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table 2 and gure 3 help to shed some light on the varying trends by comparing average
annual growth rates in the period 2000 to 2006 with values for the previous observation
period. It can be shown that some countries experienced a slower pace of urban growth in the
second observation period. This applies especially to Belgium and Germany as two highly
urbanised countries. With the exception of Slovakia, all East European countries that have
recently joined the European Union show the opposite trend—here the rate of urban growth
has accelerated since 2000. Overall, the map con rms that large parts of Western Europe have
reduced the rate of land consumption in recent years, particularly in locations where high
levels of urbanisation were already present (Benelux countries, large parts of Germany, parts
of Hungary and Romania). Some islands of intensi ed growth, however, remain, especially
along the coasts of the Mediterranean countries, in the Netherlands and Ireland, in remote
parts of France, in Northern Italy, Bavaria and the Rhine-Main area in Germany, and in
Denmark. As for Eastern Europe the picture is more diverse, with a spatially dispersed pattern
across the countries of central latitudes (parts of the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Hungary, and
Romania, and some parts of Poland). This may be interpreted as the spatial representation
of the economic development trends mentioned above with prosperous core regions (capital
regions) and an economically lagging periphery.
The next indicator looks at the proportion of sealed surfaces within urban areas (sealing
degree, indicator 4). The highest values here are for Portugal/Spain, Germany/the Netherlands,
and Hungary, suggesting that urban areas in these countries have—on average—less open
space than other countries. At the other end of the spectrum, Scandinavian and Baltic countries
(Finland/Sweden/Estonia) but also Romania and Austria have large amounts of open space
within their settlements. Whereas settlement patterns in Scandinavia and the Baltics are known
to be low density and spread over large amounts of open area, in Austria and Romania it
could be the topography that causes settlements to include many patches of unsealed surface.
To some extent, these observations correspond with the results for indicator 2 (normalised
land consumption) discussed above: populous areas with relatively compact urban forms and
high concentrations of infrastructure and buildings (= sealed surfaces) use land resources
more ef ciently and are therefore less sprawling. In this context, however, it should not be
overlooked that lack of open space can also lead to higher vulnerabilities towards urban heat
island effects or ooding, and impact on the quality of life.
3.2 Change in land-use pattern
In section 2.1, we pointed out that urban form (compact or dispersed, dense or spread-out,
etc) and its changes over time play an important role for the assessment of land-use change.
The pattern indicators calculated for each country show where urbanisation has had the
highest impact on landscape fragmentation and spatial dispersion of urban land uses (table 2).
The ‘effective open space’ looks at the amount of open space within an area, where larger
patches score higher values than highly fragmented patches. High values of this indicator,
therefore, identify areas with relatively undisturbed landscape resources. Figure 4(a) shows a
drastic variability of fragmentation levels across European regions. It is apparent that highly
urbanised countries like Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom suffer
from a nearly complete loss of larger undisturbed landscapes, at least in and around their
metropolitan areas. Long-lasting urban expansion and infrastructure development over the
last decades have led to a fragmented mosaic of habitat patches. On the other hand, we see
countries that still have extensive unfragmented areas. This applies especially to Estonia,
Ireland, Spain, Sweden, and parts of Poland and France. In general, low values appear in
and around the large urban agglomerations whereas high values can be found in peripheral,
sparsely populated areas.