Data extracted in April 2025.
Planned article update: none.
Highlights
In 2022, some 5.6% of the EU’s agricultural land was covered by landscape features.
In 2022, woody landscape features were the most common landscape feature in the EU: these include isolated trees, trees in line, hedgerows, riparian woody vegetation (alongside water courses), or narrow strips of land covered by trees and shrubs.
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The Land Use and Cover Area frame Survey (LUCAS) is a field survey conducted through direct observations by surveyors. It is the largest harmonised field survey across the European Union (EU). Managed by Eurostat, the 2022 survey introduced a module focusing on landscape features for the first time. Landscape features refer to small, non-productive elements within agricultural landscapes that support biodiversity and ecosystem services. They include hedges, trees, field margins, ditches, dry-stone or earth walls, ponds and springs. These features provide several potential benefits, such as habitat provision, pollination, soil erosion control, water quality improvement, or climate change mitigation. They can also enhance the productivity of agricultural land by improving soil fertility, natural pest control and water availability. Additionally, landscape features possess cultural value, as embedded in the ‘bocage’ landscapes of north-west France or the dry-stone walls that fragment agricultural landscapes across Malta and Ireland.
The importance of landscape features is recognised in various European policies, including the common agricultural policy (CAP) and the EU biodiversity strategy for 2030. The landscape features module aims to provide comprehensive support for environmental and agricultural monitoring. By collecting detailed data on landscape features, it helps monitor changes in land use, habitat quality and biodiversity trends, supporting the CAP’s performance monitoring and evaluation framework.
According to the first results from this new module, landscape features covered an estimated 5.6% of the EU’s agricultural land in 2022. Of this, woody features accounted for the largest share (3.2%), followed by grassy (1.9%), wet (0.4%) and stony (0.2%) landscape features.
Among the EU countries, Malta (27.7%) and Cyprus (21.1%) had the highest shares of agricultural land covered by landscape features in 2022, reflecting their local geography (steep, mountainous terrain) and traditional farming structures (small, fragmented plots). In the remaining EU countries, landscape features covered less than a tenth of agricultural land, with shares ranging from 8.9% in Portugal to less than 4.0% in Lithuania, Poland and Romania (the latter having the lowest share at 3.4%).
Agricultural land covered by landscape features
Woody landscape features include isolated trees, trees in lines or groups, hedgerows, riparian woody vegetation (along watercourses) and narrow strips of land covered by trees and shrubs; all of these features should be 1–20 metres wide. In 2022, woody landscape features covered 3.2% of the EU’s agricultural land.
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- Woody landscape features are found in every EU country, although their prevalence varies considerably; they were, nevertheless, the most prevalent type of landscape feature in 24 out of 27 EU countries.
- Cyprus (11.9%) and Malta (9.8%) had the highest shares of their agricultural land covered by woody landscape features in 2022, followed at some distance by Ireland (5.7%).
- 3 EU countries had less than 2.0% of their agricultural land covered by woody landscape features: Poland (1.9%), Spain and Lithuania (both 1.7%). These low shares may reflect, among other reasons, intensive agricultural practices with large-scale monoculture farming and wildfire management practices in arid regions.
Grassy landscape features include field margins and buffer strips (along ditches or ponds), or any other patches of semi-natural herbaceous vegetation, as long as they are next to agricultural land and measure between 1 and 20 metres wide. Across the EU, grassy landscape features covered 1.9% of agricultural land in 2022.
- Among EU countries, the highest shares of grassy landscape features in 2022 were recorded in Cyprus (9.0%) and Malta (6.9%) – in line with the results for woody landscape features. The next highest shares were observed in Italy and Sweden (both 3.1%).
- Spain was the only EU country where grassy landscape features accounted for the largest share, covering 2.6% of its agricultural land (out of a total of 5.3% for all landscape features). No other country reported grassy landscape features as the most prevalent form of landscape feature.
- At the other end of the distribution, Ireland (0.9%) and Romania (0.4%) were the only EU countries to report shares of less than 1.0%.
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Wet landscape features include accumulations of still water that are either natural (such as wetlands and lagoons) or artificial (pits and waterholes), as well as watercourses (such as streams, ditches and channels); all such features should be 1–20 metres wide. Ditches that are dry at the time of observation can still be recorded as wet landscape features if the surrounding vegetation reveals a regular presence of water. Within the EU, wet landscape features covered 0.4% of the EU’s agricultural land in 2022.
- The prevalence of wet landscape features was generally lower than that of woody or grassy landscape features.
- In 2022, the highest shares among EU countries were observed in the Netherlands (3.4%) and Finland (2.2%), while no other country reported a share exceeding 0.7%.
- The relatively high shares in the Netherlands and Finland may reflect, at least in part, the presence of polders, rural canals, bogs, peatland, fens and marshes within their agricultural landscapes.
- The Netherlands was the only EU country where wet landscape features accounted for the largest share, 3.4% of its agricultural land (out of a total of 7.2% for all landscape features). No other country reported wet landscape features as the most prevalent form of landscape feature.
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Stony landscape features include piles or arrangements of rock or stone within an agricultural context. These features may be natural (standing stones) or man-made, often with historical origins (dry-stone walls, clearance cairns). In 2022, stony landscape features covered 0.2% of the EU’s agricultural land.
- Malta had, by far, the highest share of stony landscape features among the EU countries. In 2022, stony landscape features covered more than a tenth of Maltese agricultural land (10.7%), while no other EU country reported a share higher than 0.8%, as observed in Portugal and Spain.
- Malta was the only EU country where stony landscape features accounted for the largest share, covering 10.7% of its agricultural land (out of a total of 27.7% for all landscape features). Its rural areas are characterised by terraced fields and dry-stone walls, traditional structures used both to mark agricultural plots and prevent soil erosion on hilly terrain.
- 12 out of 27 EU countries reported no stony landscape features on their agricultural land.
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Landscape features across different types of agricultural land
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Figure 5 highlights the share of 3 different types of agricultural land – arable land, permanent cropland and permanent grassland – covered by landscape features. In 2022, landscape features were most prevalent across the EU’s permanent grassland (6.6%) and permanent cropland (6.4%), while they covered a smaller share of arable land (5.0%). Note these shares are not additive: in other words, the sum of the individual shares doesn’t equal the total for all agricultural land (5.6%), as the total is a weighted average.
Arable land is typically subjected to more intensive farming practices, such as frequent ploughing, tilling and crop rotation, which can disrupt or remove natural features like hedgerows, stone walls or grass strips. This may help to explain why arable land tends to have fewer and smaller landscape features compared with permanent cropland or grassland. In 2022, 5.0% of the EU’s arable land was covered by landscape features.
- More than a fifth of the arable land in Malta (28.3%) and Cyprus (20.4%) was covered by landscape features. The next highest shares were in 3 other southern EU countries – Greece (9.0%), Portugal (9.0%) and Italy (8.0%).
- Malta, Greece and Spain were the only EU countries where landscape features covered a higher share of the arable land than permanent cropland or grassland.
- In Romania, 2.7% of arable land was covered by landscape features – the lowest share among EU countries. This may reflect, among other factors: the historical legacy of large-scale farm collectives that evolved into commercial enterprises focused on maximising production; and the prevalence of very small, subsistence-oriented farms, where production may be prioritised over natural landscape features due to very limited resources.
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Permanent crops include fruit trees, vineyards and olive groves. Permanent cropland tends to have more landscape features (than arable land) as this type of farming often involves less frequent disturbance of the soil, with space left for elements like field margins, trees or hedgerows around the productive area. In 2022, landscape features covered 6.4% of the EU’s permanent cropland.
- The highest shares, among EU countries, were recorded in Cyprus (23.4%), Malta (23.1%), Finland (12.4%) and Portugal (11.9%).
- There were 12 EU countries where landscape features covered a higher proportion of permanent cropland than permanent grassland or arable land.
- Czechia and Poland recorded the lowest shares, as 3.0% of their permanent cropland was covered by landscape features.
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Permanent grassland supports a relatively high density of landscape features like hedges, ponds or ditches; these features can provide shelter for livestock and promote biodiversity. In 2022, 6.6% of the EU’s permanent grassland was covered by landscape features.
- Bulgaria (10.2%) and Sweden (10.0%) were the only EU countries where landscape features covered a double-digit share of permanent grassland; there was also a relatively high share observed in Italy (9.9%).
- There were 12 EU countries where landscape features covered a higher proportion of permanent grassland than permanent cropland or arable land.
- Greece had the lowest share of its permanent grassland covered by landscape features, at 3.5%.
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Source data for tables and graphs
Data sources
The Land Use and Cover Area frame Survey (LUCAS) is a field survey that follows an area-frame sampling scheme. It collects data on land cover and land use using consistent definitions and methodology. The survey is conducted through direct observations made in situ by trained land surveyors. When a location is inaccessible (such as in urban or mountainous areas), high-resolution aerial imagery is used as an alternative.
LUCAS 2022 was conducted from March 2022 to August 2023. In 2022, a new module was introduced to collect data on landscape features. This module aims to provide valuable insights into the presence and characteristics of small-scale elements in the European landscape. These include features like hedges, trees, ditches, walls and field margins, all of which play an essential role in biodiversity and ecosystem connectivity. By systematically capturing this information, the landscape features module enhances our understanding of Europe’s rural and semi-natural environments. It supports EU policy initiatives such as the European Green Deal and the Biodiversity Strategy for 2030, and helps integrate landscape-level data into land-use planning, environmental management and agricultural sustainability assessments.
Sampling design
LUCAS uses a 3-phase stratified random sampling approach
- phase 1 – a 2 km x 2 km grid is laid across the EU, forming the LUCAS master sample of about 1 million points
- phase 2 – a stratified sample is selected from the master grid based on land cover, region and other criteria; this forms the LUCAS core sample, with each point classified through aerial imagery or data from previous surveys
- phase 3 – a subsample of 92 633 points, located on agricultural land, is selected for assessing landscape features; to more effectively capture scattered landscape features, each point is surveyed with a cluster of 41 subpoints distributed across a 100 metres × 100 metres quadrat (resulting in approximately 3.8 million subpoints). This design ensures that data are collected not just at the core points but also at additional subpoints within the defined area, allowing for a more granular assessment of landscape features.
Classifying landscape features
Within the landscape features module, each feature is classified by type, size, structure and whether it is natural or artificial. It’s important to underline that the survey specifically focuses on features within or directly adjacent to agricultural land, including: inside agricultural fields (arable land, permanent grassland, permanent cropland); between fields; along roads, farm tracks or railways; near farm buildings; alongside water bodies (rivers, lakes and so on). To ensure consistency, the module defines minimum and maximum sizes for landscape features
- linear features should have a width between 1 metre and 20 metres
- patch features should have an area between 1 metre² and 5 000 metres².
Context
Most changes to landscapes aren’t visible on a day-to-day basis and the natural features that form landscapes (for example, valleys, plateaus and plains) are, by and large, the result of geographical processes that have taken place over a very long period of time. Alongside these natural processes, human intervention has increasingly left an imprint on the environments in which we live and work. Land has become a natural and economic resource used for multiple purposes. ADD - fragmentation
Land use/cover data are important for an understanding of how environmental systems function, and their assessment over time provides a means for assessing the impact that any changes in land use/cover may have on biodiversity and ecosystems. As such, harmonised and reliable statistics from LUCAS provide a crucial source of information for monitoring a wide range of policy areas.
Historically, land cover change across the EU may be broadly characterised in terms of
- a modest increase in woodland (in part, driven by the need to meet global environmental commitments in relation to climate change)
- an increase in cropland that has implications for soil erosion and soil degradation
- a decline in grassland, shrubland and bareland cover
- an increase in artificial land cover, linked to (sub)urban sprawl arising from demographic and economic growth
- the continued development of infrastructure, such as new roads, railways and other manifestations of economic development, which may lead to increasingly fragmented habitats, potentially impacting upon local ecosystems and biodiversity.
Since there was no single, comprehensive database which could be used to get a consistent overview of LF across the EU, European Commission services (Eurostat, JRC, AGRI, ENV, DEFIS) have agreed to bundle resources for developing and implementing a policy-relevant EU monitoring system all over the 27 countries for the consistent quantification of the area of different types of landscape features at EU and countries level, and also possibly at regional level (NUTS2). The LUCAS (Land Use/Cover Area frame Survey) landscape features module was designed to fulfil this need and was first implemented in 2022 (LUCAS LF 2022). The intention is to develop a long term monitoring scheme for landscape features in agricultural context through regular / periodic surveys. This shall enable the assessment of the changes in the area covered by LF and therefore an indication of the overall impacts of the policy.
Landscape features are small non-productive elements within agricultural landscapes, providing support for biodiversity and the supply of ecosystem services. They include, among others, hedges, trees, the margins of fields, ditches, dry-stone or earth walls, ponds and springs. Traditionally, these have been important elements of agricultural landscapes, closely linked to agricultural management practices. In addition, they have potentially positive effects on biodiversity and ecosystem services such as habitat provision, pollination, soil erosion control, water quality, or climate change mitigation. Landscape features may not only be beneficial to the environment, they can also improve field productivity by increasing soil fertility, helping natural pest control and improving water availability. Moreover, traditional landscape features have an important cultural value, for example, the ‘bocage’ landscape primarily found in north-west France or the dry-stone walls that fragment agricultural landscapes across Malta and Ireland. The importance of landscape features has been recognised by several European sectoral policies, including the common agricultural policy (CAP) and some key components of the EU biodiversity strategy (including the Nature Restauration Law).
In some parts of the EU, traditional farming systems incorporate landscape features to prevent soil erosion, mark boundaries, or provide natural barriers for livestock. These features tend to be more prevalent in permanent grasslands and croplands, where the agriculture is generally less intensive and often more integrated with the environment. The presence of such features may also be influenced by policies under the CAP or environmental programmes that incentivise farmers to maintain landscape elements for biodiversity, carbon sequestration and ecosystem services.
Further information
The previous LUCAS survey was conducted in 2018, and the next round is planned for 2026.
More detailed background information can be found in a background article on the LUCAS survey.
The LUCAS 2022 microdata is available on Eurostat’s website.
Explore further
Other articles
Database
- Land cover overview by NUTS 2 region (lan_lcv_ovw)
- Land covered by artificial surfaces by NUTS 2 region (lan_lcv_art)
- Land covered by artificial surfaces - index (lan_lcv_arti)
- Land cover for FAO forest categories by NUTS 2 region (lan_lcv_fao)
- Settlement area (lan_settl)
Thematic section
Publications
Methodology
External links
- European Commission – Copernicus Land Monitoring Service – CORINE land cover data
- European Commission – Directorate-General for the Environment
- European Commission – INSPIRE – Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe
- European Commission – Joint Research Centre – European Soil Data Centre (ESDAC)
- European Environment Agency – Land use