Land use

The work of environmental-economic accounting (EEA) in the field of land use is focussed on the housing and transport area. It includes uses such as building and adjacent open area (excl. exploitation area), recreation area, transport area and cemetery. This definition shows that “housing and transport area” must not be equated with “sealed area”, because the housing and transport area also includes non-built-up and non-sealed areas. For example, the use category building and adjacent open area comprises areas with buildings (housing areas) as well as non-built-up areas, which are subject to the needs of a building. The areas, which are subject to the needs of a building, include, in particular, front and house gardens, playgrounds, parking lots etc., which are directly related to the building. According to estimates based on recent studies, 43 to 50 % of housing and transport areas are sealed.

A second major field of man’s utilisation of the environment – apart from material and energy flows – relates to the type and intensity of land use. What is increasingly becoming a problem is the permanent growth of the housing and transport area in Germany. From a regional perspective it means cities extending into surrounding areas, a widening of the functional and spatial separation of living quarters, workplaces, supply and leisure-time facilities as well as growing mobility. Land is an absolutely scarce, non-amplifiable asset. Using it for settlement and traffic purposes may have negative consequences for the water balance, the diversity of species, soil functions or the microclimate.

The sustainability strategy adopted by the federal government in 2002 attaches high importance to the observation and control of changes in land use. The indicator used for that purpose is the average daily growth of housing and transport areas. The goal pursued by the sustainability strategy is to reduce the daily increase in the use of land for settlement and traffic purposes.

Aggregate EEA data on land use are directly obtained from the land use survey, which in its turn is based on an evaluation of official land registers. The originally four-yearly survey has been conducted annually since 2009 (reference date 31 December). The land use classification applied for this purpose is the “Inventory of area-related uses in the land register and their definitions by the study group of surveying administrations of the states of the Federal Republic of Germany” (AdV inventory of uses) as of 1991.

Area survey results broken down by more than 30 uses make it possible to allocate housing areas to users (fields of production and households). Allocation is done in compliance with the so-called user concept. That means, for example, that the area used for dwelling purposes, which in national accounts is recorded as “letting of dwellings” in terms of the production field, is directly allocated to households. For user allocation we evaluate a large number of different sources and derive approximately 100 distribution keys in total. With a view to implicit uncertainties of estimation, the results, especially those in a deep breakdown by field of production, should be interpreted with caution.

In addition to the areas that can directly be allocated to the specified activities of production or consumption, we have a certain percentage of housing areas which at a given time are not directly used for either production or consumption (unused housing areas). These are areas such as building sites, areas with unused buildings, land abandoned and set aside or non-built-up land, which is held in store for the extension or resettlement of businesses. These areas are shown as a separate category in the results.

For further information please use our contact form or our