ITPS SOIL

LETTERS
INTERGOVERNMENTAL # 5
TECHNICAL PANEL March
URBANISATION ON SOILS 2022
AND SOIL SEALING

© FAO / Matteo Sala

©FAO/ Ami Vitale

Introduction
An important service provided by soils is the support of human or transformed areas are fully sealed. For example, in the case of
settlements, structures and infrastructures. However, once urban parks, or sports and leisure facilities, soils are often able to
urbanised, soils are usually deeply affected, and often experience maintain part of their functions, thus still potentially providing
the loss of many soil functions, such as the ability to support plant some wider ecosystem services.
growth and water infiltration, store organic carbon and host
biodiversity. The objective of this letter is to draw attention to the issues related
to soil sealing and urbanisation, and to provide a brief discussion
Urbanisation is a complex process driven by socio-economic of what actions need to be taken to prevent excessive loss of soil
factors, occurring over a wide range of rates and spatial extents all ecosystem functions and services due to urban development.
over the world. Urbanisation more or less permanently removes
land from other uses (e.g. agricultural production), or functions Extent of the issue
(e.g. natural environments). The impact of urbanisation on land
is defined here as any conversion of agricultural, natural or On a global scale, urbanised land occupies a relatively small
semi-natural area to an artificial land-use (FAO and ITPS, 2015; area, with estimates ranging from 0.2 to 2.4 percent of the
Marquard et al., 2020; Prokop, Jobstmann and Schönbauer, terrestrial land surface in 2000 (Schneider, Friedl and Potere,
2011), including sparse settlements, urban fringes, industrial 2009). However, such areas are somewhat unevenly distributed.
estates and transport infrastructure. For example, urban areas comprise 0.12 percent of sub-Saharan
Africa and 2.11 percent of Western Europe (Schneider, Friedl and
Soil sealing is defined here as the permanent covering of the soil Potere, 2009), mainly reflecting local population densities. The
surface with impervious materials such as concrete or asphalt, global estimates are somewhat uncertain due to differences in the
tar seal, and buildings or other structures definition of “urban area” as well as the tools and assumptions
that cannot be easily removed (FAO and used for estimation.
ITPS, 2015)1. However, not all urbanised
Urbanisation has been increasing rapidly in
1
The term Soil Sealing is also used to indicate when a
soil’s physical degradation is associated with the formation
many regions. Between 2000–2014, the global
of a thin surface layer along with significantly reduced land area was assessed as over 145 000 km2
porosity and permeability
of land converted to urban/artificial land uses, compared The projections made by Gao and O’Neill (2020) show that
to the pre-existing baseline of about 630 000 km2, equating by the year 2100, the amount of urban land could range from
to a 23 percent increase in urbanisation in just 5 years. about 1.1 million to 3.6 million km2, with the global per capita
The phenomenon is concentrated mainly in countries urban land more than doubling from 100 m2 in 2000 to 246 m2 .
with fast-growing economies, or with a high demographic According to the authors, the fastest urban land expansion occurs
pressure (Figure 1) (Gardi, Florczyk and Scalenghe, 2021). in Africa and Asia.

a)

b)

The boundaries and names shown and the designations used on these map(s) do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of FAO concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area or of
its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers and boundaries. Dashed lines on maps represent approximate border lines for which there may not yet be full agreement. Dotted line represents approximately
the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir agreed upon by India and Pakistan. The final status of Jammu and Kashmir has not yet been agreed upon by the parties.Final boundary between the Sudan and South Sudan has
not yet been determined.
Figure 1. Land take for urbanisation. a) Urbanisation index: ratio between artificial area and total area at countries level (relative urban cover, year 2000);
b) Relative land take for urbanization (period 2000–2014) where variation is expressed as percentage of the artificial area in 2000.
Source: UN, 2020 modified with data from Gardi, Florczyk and Scalenghe, 2021.

An urban environment can offer opportunities for an often expands out across natural and agricultural landscapes in order
poorer, rural population to generate wealth. As more people move to accommodate them, removing vital biodiversity as well as
from rural to urban areas, the urban environment necessarily important, food-producing soils. And as yet more wealth is
ITPS SOIL LETTER | 2
generated, even more people are attracted to the urban area,
further increasing urban expansion.
Several studies use scenario modelling to project future land
take for urban infrastructure. Despite the uncertainties of such
projections, urban areas will certainly continue to expand in the
coming years, posing further questions as to future impacts. Seto,
Guneralp and Hutyra (2012) estimated that 1.2 million km2 have
high probabilities of urban expansion by 2030, with a potential
increase of 185 percent in the global urban extent compared to
2000.
According to some estimates (Angel et al., 2011; van Vliet,
Eitelberg and Verburg, 2017), the less-developed countries will
probably experience much higher levels of urban expansion
than the more-developed countries, due to an already high rate
of urbanisation, lower urban densities and higher urban sprawl
found in richer countries. In less-developed countries, perhaps
lacking proper land use planning, regulation and zoning control,
the displacement of rural populations to cities can create an
irregular urbanisation at the city edges with the associated social
and economic conflicts.

Impacts on food security

and ecosystem services
A sealed soil is no longer available for any other function/service
beyond providing physical support and a place for belowground
infrastructures (cables, pipes, tunnels, etc.). The more evident
impacts are on food and biomass provision, water regulation,
biodiversity and potential of carbon sequestration.
Food security is a complex concept, encompassing multiple
dimensions, including availability, accessibility, utilization and
stability. Urbanisation and soil sealing can have a particular
impact on food availability. The agricultural land lost to urban
development in Europe between 1990 and 2006 was assessed as
more than one million hectares, with an estimated loss of more
than six million tonnes (Mg) of wheat (Gardi et al., 2015). Between
2000 and 2006, a production potential equal to approximately
700 000 t of wheat was loss annually (Tóth, 2012). For Europe,
this means an annual loss of self-sufficiency for 2.7 million people
(Tóth, 2012).
On a global scale, assuming that all the land taken between 2000
and 2014 (145 000 km2) would have otherwise been allocated to
cereal production, a potential productivity loss of about 60 million
tonnes of cereals was estimated, representing approximately 2.5
percent of the global cereal production (Gardi, Florczyk and
Scalenghe, 2021).
The impact of urbanisation on food availability may be
exacerbated by the fact that urban areas are disproportionately
located on land that is best suited for crop production (van Vliet,
©FAO/ Ronald Vargas

Eitelberg and Verburg, 2017). The projections show that the

rate of urban growth will continue to increase over the coming
decades, with agricultural land most at risk (Gardi, Florczyk and
Scalenghe, 2021) (Figure 2).

ITPS SOIL LETTER | 3

a)

• Human settlements

b)

Figure 2. Soil Productivity Index classes (SPI) a) Red dots indicate human settlements considered in the study. The pie chart represents the percentage of these urban population (1 billion
approximately) in relation to the class of productivity of the soil on which they live; b) Classes of soil productivity of the fastest growing urban settlements. The SPI scale grouped by classes:
highly productive soils (values > 10, brown scale), average productive soils (green scale), and moderately productive soils (values < 6, blue scale).
Source: UN, 2020 modified with data from Gardi, Florczyk and Scalenghe, 2021.

ITPS SOIL LETTER | 4

 Urbanisation affects other forms of land cover to differing extents
across each region of the world. Between 1970 and 2010, over
60 percent of new urban areas were built on agricultural land,
while amongst all other natural covers, forest cover experienced
the largest loss due to urban expansion; about 13 percent of
land converted to urban use (Güneralp et al., 2020). The largest
proportional losses of agricultural areas were found mostly in
China, Southeast Asia, and Europe, while the reported losses of
natural land cover were highest for North America and Oceania,
followed by Southwest Asia, Latin America and India (Güneralp
et al., 2020).
However, the loss of natural and semi-natural areas due to
urbanisation can also be underestimated. Between 1992 and
2015, urban land increase caused a direct loss of 3.3 Mha of
forest cover, with a further indirect loss of 17.8 to 32.4 Mha due
to cropland displacement, potentially leading to a loss of forest
elsewhere (van Vliet, 2019).
The sealed areas of urbanised land heavily impact water
regulation, increasing runoff and flood risk, as well as an
often drastic reduction in water infiltration and groundwater
replenishment. This has been studied mostly in Europe, North
America and China (e.g. Du et al., 2015; Gregory et al., 2006;
Haase, 2009; Pistocchi et al., 2015).
Urbanisation has both a direct and indirect negative effect on
biodiversity. Even though the impact of urban area and urban
growth on biodiversity conservation might be localised, there can
still be a knock on effect through the conversion of natural land to
agriculture in order to compensate for the agricultural land lost to
urbanisation (van Vliet, Eitelberg and Verburg, 2017; Yang et al.,
2020). The impacts on global biodiversity and carbon biomass
have been estimated for 2030, with an additional 1.8 percent of
biodiversity hotspots affected and a loss in vegetation biomass
equal to ∼5 percent of emissions from tropical deforestation and
land-use change (Seto, Guneralp and Hutyra, 2012).

Responses
Land use planning is considered to be the first tool for reducing
the impacts of urban development on soils. Planning tools can
be used and should be reinforced to preserve the most fertile soils
from sealing by directing urban development to less productive
soils and implement de-sealing and/or greening measures and
mitigating the loss of ecosystem services provided by soils, e.g.,
by using permeable pavements. Good urban planning will
include the option for shaping the new urban areas. Promoting
a dense urban texture can avoid sprawl and prevent a major loss
of productive lands, while reducing transport carbon emissions.
Urban densification also presents significant trade-offs with
important urban ecosystem services provided by open urban
green spaces (Larondelle and Haase, 2013).
©Pexels/ Doreen Chen

Sustainable management of urban and peri-urban soils

represents an efficient tool to mitigate the impact of urbanisation.
Agricultural areas at the urban fringes are the most threatened
by urbanisation and are often interspersed in the urban areas,
due to sprawl. Especially in urban margins, urban agriculture
is increasingly recognized as an important contributor to food
ITPS SOIL LETTER | 5
security, representing an opportunity for “improving food In urban environments, green areas need to be carefully
supply, health conditions, local economy, social integration, and managed to prevent soil compaction and soil contamination, as
environmental sustainability altogether” (Orsini et al., 2013). well as working to increase the soil’s organic matter. Vegetation
The management of non-sealed soils in urban areas requires establishment must take account of the below-ground
particular attention in order to avoid any pollution-related health infrastructure as well as aesthetic and production considerations.
issues (Brevik et al., 2020; De Kimpe and Morel, 2000; Orsini et al.,
2013). Transportation corridors can also be managed, since the Despite the often assumed permanence of urban soil sealing,
sealed soil is only a minor amount of the land affected, and the there are many possibilities and opportunities to remove soil
corridors can be vegetated and managed to provide a variety of sealing and to ‘green’ the environment within cities (see e.g.
ecosystem services. There is also potential to improve soil carbon https://www.wur.nl/en/Dossiers/file/Greenery-in-the-city.htm,
sequestration in urban soils. The manual Recarbonizing Global Soils - Figure 3) by adopting nature based solutions (see e.g. https://
A technical manual of recommended sustainable soil management (FAO and www.nature-basedsolutions.com/).
ITPS, 2021) contains a set of soil management practices and case
studies for urban areas, conducive to soil carbon sequestration.

Figure 3. Reasons to green urban

environments: a) improve biodiversity;
b) facilitate urban agriculture.
Source: reproduced with permits from
https://www.wur.nl/en/Dossiers/file/
Greenery-in-the-city.htm

a)
©Wageningen University & Research
©Wageningen University & Research

b)

ITPS SOIL LETTER | 6

Soil de-sealing and urban greening can have beneficial effects on fragmented, being addressed by different instruments and sectors,
urban ecosystem services by: from flood protection to land planning, and from infrastructures
to agriculture. There are also great differences around the world
• Reducing the risk of flooding. in terms of information (data) and political actions to estimate
Urban drainage systems are designed for low return trends and design policies to deal with this problem.
periods and have a limited capacity to deal with extreme
rainfall events. Open soils allow rainwater to have a natural Existing policies for the development of settlements and
pathway to the groundwater system, helping to prevent infrastructure should be reviewed and, where necessary, their
flooding. This option is becoming increasingly important as compliance should be either reinforced or amended to take
the frequency of heavy rainfall events increases, most likely account of the value of soils and of the ecosystem services that
driven by climate change. soils provide (FAO and ITPS, 2015).
• Cooling the city in summer.
Vegetated soils can reduce city heat by vegetation
evaporation and by trees providing shadow. References
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ITPS SOIL LETTER | 7

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©FAO/ Matteo Sala

The Intergovernmental Technical Panel on Soils (ITPS) is composed of 27 top soil experts representing all the regions
of the world. ITPS members have a 3-year mandate and provide scientific and technical advice and guidance on global
soil issues to the Global Soil Partnership primarily and to specific requests submitted by global or regional institutions.
Created in 2013 at the first Plenary Assembly of the Global Soil Partnership held at FAO Headquarters, the ITPS
CB8617EN/1/03.22

advocates for addressing sustainable soil management in the different sustainable development agendas.
© FAO, 2022

Some rights reserved. This work is available

under a CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO licence