Can the 2050 zero land take objective of the EU be reliably monitored? A comparative study.

The European Union has defined an ambitious objective for the future concerning sustainable land use to stop the process of land take by 2050. But can this objective be reliably monitored? In this paper, which is based on the case study of Luxembourg and the neighbouring regions, we show that the tools that are used to monitor land-take produce different results that prevent from comparing the figures from one region to another. Moreover, a comparison of the strategic documents related to land use in this cross-border region shows that land-use policies are the product of very different contexts and relationships towards land as a resource, which need to be addressed with tailored strategies.