Land Use/Cover Area frame Survey - Results on EU land cover and use

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Price FREE Publisher Eurostat Publication date 04 October 2010 ISBN

Publication synopsis Forests and other wooded areas occupy almost 40% of the total area of the EU, cropland nearly a quarter and grassland a further fifth, while built-up and other artificial areas, such as roads and railways, account for 4%. Regarding socio-economic use, over 40% of the land in the EU is used for agriculture and almost 30% for forestry. The use of land for residential, commercial and industrial purposes accounts for just over 10% of the total area of the EU. These data are published for the first time by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union and are based on a large scale land survey, the Land Use / Cover Area frame Survey (LUCAS), conducted in 2009. Land was surveyed in 23 EU Member States, where both the physical cover of the land and its visible socio-economic use were recorded. LUCAS is the largest harmonised land survey ever implemented in the EU. The resulting dataset is unique as it is fully harmonised and comparable with the same definitions and methodology among Member States.

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