Throwback on the press conference in Brussels

A press conference on 3 July presented the project and allowed attendees to get hands-on with some of the web-based tools at its core. Comments and input came from agriculture and soil experts from LANDSUPPORT, the European Council of Spatial Planners (ECTP), the Istituto Nazionale di Urbanistica (INU), and the Italian National Institute for Environmental Protection and Research (ISPRA).

To encourage better policy decisions and protect against land degradation, the project created the Land Take tool – one component of a web-based, open access GeoSpatial Decision Support System (S-DSS) – the LANDSUPPORT S-DSS platform. It employs a combination of data, modelling, and on-the-fly calculations to analyse, monitor and mitigate land take for the entire European territory.

The tool has a number of potential applications – aiding National Public Authorities who require ongoing monitoring of land take in their territory; assisting planning at a regional or provincial level where planning guidelines need to be adopted; and informing decisions at an administrative level where final land take decisions are made.