European Topic Centre on Urban, Land and Soil Systems (ETC/ULS)

Supporting urban, land and soil assessments on a European Scale to create seamless European wide information

Project summary

The ETC on Urban, Land and Soil Systems (ETC/ULS) is an international consortium working with the European Environment Agency (EEA) under a framework partnership agreement for the period 2019-2021. It supports the EEA in monitoring urban development in Europe, creating and managing seamless European-wide spatial reference data and developing and analysing various land and ecosystem-related indicators. ETC/ULS is a key player in different sectoral policies such as the EU Biodiversity Strategy, and the EU Roadmap to a Resource Efficient Europe among others.

The ETC/ULS is a follow-up of the European Topic Centres on Land Use and Spatial Information (LUSI) and Spatial Analysis and Information (SIA), which the University of Málaga joined in 2011.

Our role

Our team leads and participates in several key activities of the ETC/ULS, providing technical and thematic expertise, particularly related to:

Development of the Integrated Data Platform.
Support to the EEA ecosystem accounting with land, water and nutrient accounts.
Participation in the European ecosystem assessments in the context of the Working Group on Mapping and Assessment of Ecosystem and their Services, with specific focus on wetland and forest ecosystems.
Coordination of forest indicator development and forest assessments.
Development of assessments of soil conditions.

Main outputs

Technical reports

Impacts of nutrients and heavy metals in European agriculture: Current and critical inputs in relation to air, soil and water quality

ETC DI Report 2022/01

Time series inconsistency in the Copernicus HRL Imperviousness. Analysis of the 2015-2018 changes, implications and conclusions

ETC/ULS Technical Report 01/2021

Carbon pools and sequestration potential of wetlands in the European Union

ETC/ULS Report 10/2021

Soil monitoring in Europe. Indicators and thresholds for soil quality assessments

ETC/ULS Report 2021

Land and ecosystem accounts for Europe. Towards geospatial environmental accounting

ETC/ULS Report 02/2020

Land and ecosystem accounts for Europe Towards geospatial environmental accounting

Ivits et al. (2020). ETC/ULS Report 02/2020

Mapping and Assessment of Ecosystems and their Services: An EU ecosystem assessment

Maes et al. (2020). Publications Office of the European Union

Integrated accounting of land cover changes and soil functions

Gregor, M; Löhnertz, M; Schröder, C; Aksoy, E; Prokop, G; Louwagie, G (2018). ETC/ULS Report 02/2018

Tourism and the Environment - towards a reporting mechanism in Europe

Giulietti, S; Romagosa, F; Esteve, Fons J; Schröder, C. (2018). ETC/ULS Report 01/2018

Gregor, M., Löhnertz, M., Schröder, C., Aksoy, E., Fons, J., Garzillo, C., Wildman, A., Kuhn, S., Prokop, G., Cugny-Seguin, M. (2018). ETC/ULS Report 03/2018

Mapping and assessing the condition of Europe’s ecosystems: progress and challenges

EEA (2016). EEA Report No 3/2016

Scientific publications

Assessing soil biodiversity potentials in Europe

Aksoy, E; Louwagie, G; Gardi, C; Gregor, M; Schröder, C; Löhnertz, M (2017)

Assessing and analysing the impact of land take pressures on arable land

Aksoy, E; Gregor, M; Schröder, C; Löhnertz, M; Louwagie, G. (2017)

Spatial data

EEA SDI

Geospatial data catalogue of the European Enviroment Agency

More about it

Emanuele Mancosu

Data management

emanuele.mancosu@uma.es

Strong interests and curiosity about environment subjects and informatics technology. The academic career was orientated in natural science finished in 2004 with highest honors with particular attention on GIS...

Dania Abdul Malak

Wetland policy related inquiries

daniaabdulmalak@uma.es

Dania Abdul Malak is a senior environmental researcher and Director of the European Topic Centre at the University of Malaga (ETC-UMA). She has over 15 years’ experience in environmental assessment and management...

Our partners

Environment Agency Austria

Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

Wageningen Environmental Research

Project website

European Environment Agency

Towards a Strategy for the Sustainable Management of Mediterranean Forests (StrategyMedFor)

The StrategyMedFor project, co-financed by the Interreg Euro-MED programme, was launched at the University of Malaga during a two day meeting that took place on March 18 and 19, 2024. The European Topic Centre on Spatial Analysis and Synthesis (ETC-UMA), ...

Collaborative science for forests by ETC-UMA showcased in Slovenia during the COP23

As UNEP MAP partner organization, ETC-UMA recently engaged in the organization of a session with Mediterranean institutions under the topic of climate change, entitled: From COASTAL to FOREST ecosystems: Mediterranean Nature-based Solutions to tackle climate change and ensure the Resilience ...

Job opening: Senior Specialist in Forest ecosystem conservation and climate resilience

ETC-UMA is opening a vacancy to recruit a highly motivated and well qualified candidate to work as a Senior Specialist in Forest ecosystem conservation and climate resilience. This position seeks to consolidate ETC-UMA´s working area in forest conservation research through ...

Tools for conserving the Spanish coast

On the initiative of the Instituto Universitario Hábitat Territorio y Digitalización (iHTD) of the University of Malaga, around 70 representatives of Spanish public administrations, researchers, architecture and environmental science players and civil society signed up to the second debate on ...

Best wishes to all from ETC-UMA

Warm wishes and all the best for 2024 Looking back at 2023, we celebrate the steps forward in conserving some species and wish the same for those still threatened in 2024. Nuestros mejores deseos para 2024 Celebramos los avances logrados ...