Land consumption and land take : enhancing conceptual clarity for evaluating spatial governance in the EU context

This study was initiated at an international expert workshop hosted by the German Federal Environment Agency (UBA) as an element of the project "SURFACE-Standards and Strategies for the reduction of land consumption, " also funded by the UBA; E.M. and J.B. received funding from this project (FKZ 3717181100). S.B. acknowledges support by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) in the framework of the funding measure "Soil as a Sustainable Resource for the Bioeconomy-BonaRes, " project "BonaRes (Module B): BonaRes Centre for Soil Research, subproject A" (Grant 031A608A), and in the funding measure "Stadt-Land-Plus" through the project "Stadt-Land-Plus-Wissenschaftliches Querschnittsvorhaben" (FKZ 033L200). A.H. acknowledges funding by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) through the project "Strategic Spatial Planning for Urban and Regional Shrinking" (FWF-J3993-G29). E.V. acknowledges funding by the Operational Program Research, Development and Education of the Czech Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, supported by EU funds through the project "Smart City-Smart Region-Smart Community" (CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/17_048/0007435). J.S. acknowledges funding of the Slovak Research & Development Agency (APVV-15-0136). Altres ajuts: UBA/FKZ3717181100 Altres ajuts: BMBF/031A608A Altres ajuts: FKZ 033L200 Altres ajuts: FWF-J3993-G29FWF-J3993-G29 Altres ajuts: APVV-15-0136 Rapid expansion of settlements and related infrastructures is a global trend that comes with severe environmental, economic, and social costs. Steering urbanization toward well-balanced compactness is thus acknowledged as an important strategic orientation in UNSustainable Development Goal 11 (SDG-11) via the SDG-indicator "Ratio of land consumption rate to population growth rate. " The EU's simultaneous commitment to being "a frontrunner in implementing [⋯] the SDGs" and to striving for "no net land take until 2050" calls for relating the concepts of land consumption and land take to each other. Drawing on an EU-centred questionnaire study, a focus group and a literature review, we scrutinize definitions of land consumption and land take, seeking to show how they are interrelated, and questioning the comparability of respective indicators. We argue that conceptual clarifications and a bridging of the two notions are much needed, and that the precision required for definitions and applications is context-dependent. While approximate understandings may suffice for general communication