What are the drivers for soil sealing?

Over recent decades, growing wealth and changing lifestyles have increased the demand for built-up land. This has contributed strongly to today’s high standard of living in many European countries – but it has also intensified land take and soil sealing. 

Think about our modern lifestyle and welfare-based society, but also your everyday life: where you live, how you get around, where you shop, do sports, study, where the energy that charges your phone comes from. All of these activities need space. Housing, roads, industrial areas, parking lots, and infrastructure all require land – and once land is built on, the soil underneath is often sealed. 

On average, each person today uses more land than in the past; the land use intensity has increased. Homes are larger, cities spread outward, and infrastructure networks expand. This shift has led to increasing urban sprawl.