Paved, Sealed, Developed: Where Europe Closes up Surfaces

On World Soil Day, marked on December 5, the United Nations is looking at urban landscapes this year, promoting the theme "Healthy Soils for Healthy Cities". In this context, surface sealing is a major topic of concern as urban sprawl continues to spread around the world. Copernicus Land Monitoring Service experts even call sealing natural surfaces "one of the most destructive forces on our ecosystems". Sealed soil loses all of its functions, which normally include absorbing rainwater, regulating temperature, storing carbon and improving air quality. Due to runoff and increasing sealing in rural areas, the phenomenon can also lead to water quality degradation, affecting agriculture, aquatic animals and ground water supplies.

Data from Copernicus published by Eurostat shows where the sealing of natural surfaces in Europe has been moving fastest. Countries that have been defined by large rural or wilderness stretches as well as very small nations are seeing the biggest relative growth in their sealed surfaces. Between 2006 and 2018, the latest data available, this applied to Cyprus, Turkey, Kosovo, Iceland and Poland. In the island nation of Cyprus, sealed area increased by a whopping 11 percent over the course of the given 12 years.

In Spain, Slovakia and Malta, the increase in sealed areas was just under 5 percent each. Malta is by far the most sealed-up nation in Europe as defined by Copernicus, with almost 20 percent of the island's 316 km² covered up as of 2018. Most of the other fast growers are not yet among the most sealed countries, with Cyprus in rank 13 at around 3 percent as well as Slovakia, Poland and Spain at around 2 percent each (ranks 19-21). The most sealed nations in Europe after Malta are the Netherlands and Belgium (at around 9 percent sealed each), Luxembourg, Lichtenstein and Germany (around 6 percent sealed) and the UK, Denmark, Italy and Switzerland (at around 4 percent each).