Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
regions is often used in comparisons of socio-economic indicators in functional
regions. This typology is derived from population density. All three types of regions
are territorial entities with villages, cities and agricultural area. The OECD rural
typology could be used as a typology of rural and urban regions in this study as
well. However, due to the use of FADN data in our analysis, we have to make some
adjustments for the regional unit. Whereas the OECD rural typology was designed
for a mix of NUTS2 and NUTS3
2
regions (OECD
1996)
, which covers 599 regions
in the EU15, FADN distinguishes only 105 EU15 regions. For some smaller EU
Member States (Belgium, Denmark, Ireland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Austria
and Finland), a FADN region coincides with the whole country.
3
In order to distinguish FADN regions according to their rurality, we designed a
typology of urban and rural FADN regions by using the same differentiating
characteristics and method of classifying types as in the OECD rural typology
(OECD
1996)
. The differentiating characteristic refers to population density in
local communities. The method of classifying types consists of three steps. First,
when population density in local communities is less than 150 inhabitants per
square kilometre, the community is classified as 'rural'; when population exceeds
150 inhabitants per square kilometre as 'urban'. Second, a deductive method of
classification has been applied by distinguishing three types of regions (Fig.
8.1
):
1. Most rural regions
2. Intermediate rural regions
3. Most urban regions
These three types were created by using the following threshold values:
-
When more than 50% of the population of the region lives in rural local
communities, the region is classified as 'most rural'.
When between 15% and 50% of the population of the region lives in rural local
-
communities, the region is classified as 'intermediate rural'.
And when less than 15% of the population of the region lives in rural local
-
communities, the region is classified as 'most urban'.
Finally, when most rural regions include a city of 200,000 inhabitants or more, the
region is classified as intermediate rural; when intermediate rural regions include a
city of 500,000 inhabitants or more, the region is classified as most urban.
2
NUTS = Nomenclature des Unités Territoriales Statistiques.
3
For linking FADN data with data from other harmonized European regional data sources, such
as Eurostat REGIO and the Farm Structure Survey (FSS), we have to take account of the use of
different borders of regions. In order to harmonize the regional levels used in FADN, REGIO and
FSS, we have designed a so-called HARM1 regional division. For most EU15 Member States,
FADN regions coincide with HARM1 regions. However, in some countries the number of FADN
regions exceeds that of HARM1 regions: Germany (16 FADN regions and 14 HARM1 regions),
Italy (21 FADN regions and 20 HARM1 regions) and Portugal (five FADN regions and four
HARM1 regions). In our calculations, we use the HARM1 regional division. As the differences
with FADN regions are relatively small, and as the FADN regions are more known than the
HARM1 regions, we use for convenience sake the term FADN regions in the rest of the text.
