Monitoring changes in land cover is crucial to understanding how urbanisation impacts the natural environment. Detailed spatial information on these changes can help identify which areas have been exposed to larger urban pressure, guiding targeted policy interventions where this expansion threatens the quality of the landscape or bio-diversity. In 2001, urban land ranged from very low levels in sparsely populated countries (less than 0.1% of the national territory in Iceland and Canada) to significant levels in densely inhabited ones (more than 10% in Belgium and the Netherlands) (Figure 27.1). Emerging economies had generally low-intermediate levels of their territory covered by artificial surfaces (from 0.5% in Brazil to 1% in India).

Forests are strategic assets for sustainable development and for climate change mitigation. Besides being essential for biodiversity and the environment, they fulfil other functions for society, providing employment opportunities as well as recreational value. A significant fraction of the land of OECD countries is covered by forests. There are however large differences across and within countries. Among the countries with the largest interregional variation, the United States, Canada, Chile, Mexico and Norway in the OECD – and Brazil and the Russian Federation among emerging economies – display regions with more than 80% of the land covered by forests (Figure 28.1). At the same time, in all these countries with the exception of Norway, more than one region has less than 10% of forested land. Given these large regional differences, it is very important to put in place co-ordinated policies for forest conservation at the national, regional and local level.

The urgency of the climate change challenge requires a rapid, sustained, and effective transition to lower carbon regional economies. Apart from necessary reduction in greenhouse gases, there is also a need to cut emissions of other pollutants like toxic gases or fine particles that can severely threaten people’s health. Regional and city-level policies have a key role to play in this transition.

Waste management has potential impacts on human health and ecosystems. However, there are also concerns about the treatment and disposal capacity of existing facilities, and on the location and social acceptance of new facilities. The economic, environmental and social impact of waste is relevant in regions also because waste disposal is usually managed at the local level. Many OECD countries have strengthened measures for waste minimisation, recycling, product life cycle management and extended producer responsibility.

Infrastructure is the foundation of regional development and has been the target of significant investment through regional policy in the past years. Regional competitiveness is affected by infrastructure endowment, such as transport or telecommunication networks which, together with investment in human capital and innovation, can improve the access to markets, increase the connectivity of regions and provide services more efficiently.

Innovation in mitigation technology is a means to address climate change. The patenting activity of regions in green technology provides a measure of the efforts and pace of innovation. Japan and the United States display the top performing regions in number of patents in new sectors, such as green technologies, biotechnologies and nanotechnologies. The number of patents in biotechnologies is higher and patenting activities less recent than in green and nanotechnologies. Among the top performing regions in green patenting, Aichi and Tokyo (Japan) have emerged most recently (Figure 32.1).