Land use efficiency of functional urban areas: Global pattern and evolution of development trajectories

Marcello Schiavina; Michele Melchiorri; Sergio Freire; Pietro Florio; Daniele Ehrlich; Pierpaolo Tommasi; Martino Pesaresi; Thomas Kemper

doi:10.1016/j.habitatint.2022.102543

Land use efficiency of functional urban areas: Global pattern and evolution of development trajectories

Habitat Int. 2022 May:123:None. doi: 10.1016/j.habitatint.2022.102543.

Authors

Marcello Schiavina¹, Michele Melchiorri¹, Sergio Freire¹, Pietro Florio¹, Daniele Ehrlich¹, Pierpaolo Tommasi², Martino Pesaresi¹, Thomas Kemper¹

Affiliations

¹ European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC), via E. Fermi 2749, I-21027, Ispra, (VA), Italy.
² Fincons Group, Via Torri Bianche, 10, I-20871, Vimercate, (MB), Italy.

Abstract

The application of last-generation spatial data modelling, integrating Earth Observation, population, economic and other spatially explicit data, enables insights into the sustainability of the global urbanisation processes with unprecedented detail, consistency, and international comparability. In this study, the land use efficiency indicator, as developed in the Sustainable Development Goals, is assessed globally for the first time at the level of Functional Urban Areas (FUAs). Each FUA includes the city and its commuting zone as inferred from statistical modelling of available spatial data. FUAs represent the economic area of influence of each urban centre. Hence, the analysis of land consumption within their boundary has significance in the fields of spatial planning and policy analyses as well as many other research areas. We utilize the boundaries of more than 9,000 FUAs to estimate the land use efficiency between 1990 and 2015, by using population and built-up area data extracted from the Global Human Settlement Layer. This analysis shows how, in the observed period, FUAs in low-income countries of the Global South evolved with rates of population growth surpassing the ones of land consumption. However, in almost all regions of the globe, more than half of the FUAs improved their land use efficiency in recent years (2000-2015) with respect to the previous decade (1990-2000). Our study concludes that the spatial expansion of urban areas within FUA boundaries is reducing compactness of settlements, and that settlements located within FUAs do not display higher land use efficiency than those outside FUAs.

Keywords: AAPDEA, Abstract Achieved Density in Expansion Area; AOI, Area of interest; BpC, Built-up area per capita; EC, European Commission; FAO, Food and Agriculture Organization; FUA, Functional Urban Area; GDP, Gross Domestic Product; GHS-BUILT, GHSL built-up area spatial grid; GHS-FUA, GHSL FUA layer; GHS-POP, GHSL population spatial grid; GHS-SMOD, GHSL settlement classification spatial grid; GHSL; GIS, Geospatial Information System; GSARS, Global Strategy on Agricultural and Rural Statistics; HIC, High-Income Countries; LCR, Land Consumption Rate; LCRPGR, Land Use Efficiency indicator; LIC, Low Income Countries; LMC, Lower-Middle Income Countries; LN, Natural logarithm; LUE, Land Use Efficiency; Land consumption; Metropolitan areas; OECD, Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development; PGR, Population Growth Rate; SDG 11.3.1; UMC, Upper-Middle Income Countries; UN, United Nations; UNDESA, United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs; Urbanisation.