Is a Sustainable Land-Use Policy in Germany Possible?

Land is an essential but limited natural resource. We employ the concept of stocks to analysedriving forces for land-use conversion and to assess, whether the German political “30-hectares-goal” is feasible given the current institutional setting. In this paper major drivingforces for land-use conversion are identified and underlying stocks and persistent institutionalstructures as well as their dynamics are investigated. It will be shown that meeting the 30-hectares-goal is unlikely. We further argue that due to persistent stocks and institutionalstructures land-use conversion from agricultural into urbanised land takes place on smallertime scales than its reconversion. We conclude that demographic change and regionalmigration processes may result in further land-use conversion even with declining population.Economic structural change as well as an increasing traffic volume will likewise contribute tofurther land-use conversion.[...]