11.1.a Expansion of settlement and transport area
The indicator represents the average daily increase in settlement and transport area (SPA). Settlement areas include, among other things, residential areas, industrial and commercial areas, areas for public facilities, recreational areas, and cemeteries. Extracted land, i.e., mining and open-cast mining areas, also generally falls under SPA. However, extracted land is not considered for the calculation of the indicator because it is assumed that it will be used for other purposes in the long term, for example, as post-mining landscapes.
This indicator is not equivalent to the increase in sealed areas. In addition to sealed areas, it also includes undeveloped and unsealed settlement areas such as home gardens, parks, and green spaces, as well as roadside greenery and other unsealed traffic areas. According to calculations from the German states' Environmental Economic Accounts, the national average sealing share of settlement and traffic areas was approximately 45% in 2022.
The data basis for this indicator is the Federal Statistical Office's area survey by type of actual use (official area statistics), which is based on data from the official land registers of the federal states. The federal states are harmonizing their land registers, which has led to land reclassifications in recent years – even without actual changes in land use. To offset these effects, a moving four-year average is used, which includes the current reporting year and the three previous years.
In 2016, a change took place to a new land use catalog, which impacted official land use statistics and complicated comparability with previous years. As part of the reclassifications, areas previously classified as agricultural were assigned to new categories such as recreational areas or mixed-use areas. Therefore, a detailed breakdown by land use type is not available for 2016.
In 2022, the total settlement and transport area amounted to 50,563 square kilometers. Of this, approximately 64% was settlement and 36% was transport. The largest land use type was agriculture, with 180,207 square kilometers (50.4%), followed by forests, with 106,795 square kilometers (29.9%).
Between 2021 and 2022, the area used for settlement and transport increased by 157 square kilometers, while agricultural land decreased by 383 square kilometers. At the same time, forest land increased by 96 square kilometers. The increase in the area used for settlement and transport thus occurred predominantly at the expense of agricultural land.
Between 2000 and 2022, a total area of 6,624 square kilometers was converted into residential and transport areas. This corresponds to more than twice the area of Saarland or approximately 1.85% of Germany's total area.
The area growth of SUVs is primarily driven by the designation of new settlement areas. Since 2000, this increase has accounted for 85% of the total increase in SUVs, while 15% was accounted for by the increase in traffic areas.
The four-year moving average of newly claimed land fell steadily until 2019, reaching a low of 52 hectares per day. In 2020 and 2021, this figure rose to 55 hectares per day before returning to the 2019 level in 2022. The politically set target of reducing daily land use to below 30 hectares by 2030 is unlikely to be achieved if current trends continue.
