Cores, ribbon development and scattered buildings in Flanders

Urban sprawl is a phenomenon of urban expansion (EEA, 2006) that has a very significant presence in Flanders. The study 'urban sprawl in Europe' (EEA, 2016) showed that Belgium scored the highest on the Weighted Urban Proliferation (WUP) indicator. This indicator was developed to quantify urban sprawl and allows regions to be compared. The 'WUP' is based on building density, land use per person (working and living) and the pattern of building expressed in dispersion. There are also indicators of urban sprawl that highlight other aspects of the phenomenon. Ribbon development, for example, is a very typical spatial pattern that is linked to urban sprawl in Flanders. The ribbon development which extends into the Flemish landscape as strips of buildings along (connecting) roads shreds up the open space and puts pressure on mobility. Verbeek et al. (2014) published a methodology to map out this ribbon development in Flanders. As part of the research assignment 'Monetising Urban sprawl in Flanders' - carried out by VITO, Common Ground and VRP on behalf of the Department of Environment - a generic model was developed to map ribbon development alongside cores and scattered buildings. This sub-contract is technically explained in this document.

Publication year:2018

Accessibility:Open