MONET 2030: Urban sprawl

SDG 11: Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable

Goal description

"[…] many challenges exist to maintaining cities in a way that continues to create jobs and prosperity while not straining land and resources. […] The future we want includes cities of opportunities for all, with access to basic services, energy, housing, transportation and more."

Excerpt from Swiss target 11.4: Urban sprawl is halted and new construction occurs only within designated development areas and corridors. Farmland and nature are largely protected from building development. […]

Significance of the indicator
The indicator shows scattered buildings in a zone that has not been built on. Limiting these scattered constructions saves land and reduces the impact and cost of infrastructure. A reduction in urban sprawl, therefore, is a step towards sustainable development.

Help for interpretation
A landscape will become more subject to sprawl the more constructions are scattered and the lower the density of their use for residential or employment purposes.

International comparability
This indicator cannot be compared at international level.

Synthesis

Comments: No assessment is possible for this indicator as the time series is too short.

This indicator shows the degree of urban sprawl for Switzerland as a whole and by biogeographical region. The metric was developed as part of the National Research Programme 54 «Nachhaltige Siedlungs- und Infrastrukturentwicklung» in the project «Landschaftszersiedelung Schweiz – Quantitative Analyse 1935 bis 2002 und Folgerungen für die Raumplanung» (J. Jaeger, C. Schwick, R. Bertiller, F. Kienast 2008). The data shown here come from the «Landscape Monitoring Switzerland» (LABES) programme of the Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN), which is scientifically supported by the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL). Due to the conversion of the digital terrain model of the Federal Office of Topography (swisstopo) from vector25 to TLM between approx. 2010 and 2018, the time series will only be reliably comparable again from 2018 and subsequent years.

Excerpt from Swiss target 11.4: Urban sprawl is halted and new construction occurs only within designated development areas and corridors. Farmland and nature are largely protected from building development. […]

International target 11.4: Strengthen efforts to protect and safeguard the world’s cultural and natural heritage.