Takeaways from the Knowledge Exchange on Land Suitability Analysis Workshop
Take a moment to find out the key takeaways of our workshop on land suitability analysis, attended by 144 participants representing functional areas. This workshop is part of the planned knowledge exchange activities, which focus on topics of relevance to the FAs in the EU and are developed under the “Functional Areas in the EU” project.
The workshop began by emphasizing that the Land Suitability Analysis (LSA) is a data-intensive tool that can be used for strategic and spatial planning purposes at the local and regional levels. Moreover, it highlighted that the LSA employs computing power to analyze large volumes of data and generate results that can aid human decision-making. Pawel Weis, the first speaker and representative of the Rzeszow Functional Area, managed to successfully encompass the latter information while explaining that the functional area used the Land Suitability Analysis as a foundation for more efficient and sustainable spatial and strategic planning. To further showcase the importance of the LSA for the Rzeszow Functional Urban Area (RFUA), Grzegorz Wolszczak, World Bank representative, followed and presented the LSA’s results, various analytical angles and four versions of analysis, as well as the strategic development areas and green-blue areas.
The final presentation was held by Zoltan Coraian, representative of the Cluj Metropolitan Area, who illustrated how the Cluj Metropolitan Area replicated the Rzeszow model and used the Land Suitability Analysis as a platform for engaging a wide array of stakeholders for better planning of the metropolitan territory. Overall, the presentation exemplified how the land suitability analysis can provide support for coordinated planning at the metropolitan level and help identify interventions for improving the competitiveness and sustainability of a functional area.
You can access the presentations below:
The Knowledge Exchange Presentations:
Useful Tools:
About this resource
In 2021, the European Commission launched a pilot project to improve functional area approaches in the EU and has partnered with the World Bank to implement this initiative. As part of the project, the project team collaborated with 12 functional areas from seven EU countries, providing them with tailored technical support and assistance: Zagreb Urban Agglomeration (Croatia), Brno Metropolitan Area (Czech Republic), West Athens (Greece), Lake Balaton Area (Hungary), Kalisz-Ostrów Agglomeration, Kraków Metropolitan Area (Poland), Jiu Valley and Jiu Conurbation Functional Area, Caraș-Timiș Functional Area, Cluj Metropolitan Area, Oradea Metropolitan Area, West Ialomița Functional Area (Romania), and Trenčín Functional Area (Slovakia).