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

RESTORE4Cs 1st Policy Brief: How can coastal wetlands help achieve EU climate goals?

The first RESTORE4Cs Policy Brief of RESTORE4Cs, “How can coastal wetlands help achieve EU climate goals?“, highlights the importance of European coastal wetlands for reducing Greenhouse Gas emissions. The key messages of the first RESTORE4Cs Policy Brief include: Coastal wetlands are important natural carbon stores, ...

Mapping the Impact of Blue Tourism in the Mediterranean

The IUCN Centre for Mediterranean Cooperation with the support of ETC-UMA in the framework of the Blue Tourism Initiative, has released a comprehensive report entitled "Mapping the Impact of Blue Tourism in the Mediterranean: Vulnerability Assessment of Coastal and Marine ...

StrategyMedFor Presented at Annual Medforval Meeting 2024

StrategyMedFor was prominently featured at the Annual Medforval Meeting 2024, held from June 5-7 in Fontecchio, Italy. The event brought together 25 practitioners from national parks and natural reserves across 9 Mediterranean countries, providing a valuable platform for StrategyMedFor to ...

Celebrating leadership in environmental management: an interview with Dania Abdul Malak

From designing integrated ecosystem assessments in Europe and the Mediterranean to transforming outcomes into evidence-based recommendations for regional stakeholders, the European Topic Centre on Spatial Analysis and Synthesis (ETC-UMA) stands as a flagship for territorial cooperation. At the forefront of ...

Save the date! Unlocking solutions for coastal conservation in Europe

How can coastal wetlands respond to major European Union objectives such as climate neutrality, biodiversity protection, and pollution reduction? What key role do coastal wetlands play in achieving EU commitments for climate mitigation and biodiversity conservation? The European Topic Centre ...