Does demographic change affect land use patterns? A case study from Germany

Recent demographic change, mainly characterised by a decreasing and ageing population, is seen as one of the main factors for future land use development in Europe. However, there is still insufficient evidence about the relationship between demographic changes and land use changes since quantitative studies dealing with these interactions are still rare. We aim to fill that gap by presenting the first comprehensive study that investigates statistical relationships and spatial differentiations between demographic and land use change for the whole of Germany. Our study is based on data for the period from 1995/1996 to 2003/2004. The results clearly show that in most growing regions in the West of Germany a correlation was found between land use, natural population growth and net-migration, whereas for land use change in the shrinking regions in the East of Germany economic variables are of noticeable importance. A cluster analysis reveals "gaining" and "shrinking" regions concerning both urbanisation and demographic change. Neither a decreasing nor an ageing population imply reduced land consumption for housing and transportation. Furthermore we found a decreasing settlement population density for almost all German districts regardless of population growth or shrinkage. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.