A Regional Planning Application of Euroscanner in Portugal

Socio-economic change is becoming more complex and appears to be having greater environmental and land use impacts throughout Europe. Land use morphology reflects changes in the size, shape and function of buildings and is linked with changes in transport infrastructure. It is also related to a general increase in urban and built-up areas (partly a result of urban sprawl) and is closely related to the changing role and function of rural areas. It can be argued that analysing medium to long term spatial planning scenarios is important in order to incorporate appropriate mitigation action in plans to alleviate the potentially detrimental effects of development. Scenario-based land use planning can also be extremely useful in helping to develop an understanding of the driving forces behind land use change (ESDP, 1997).