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The purpose of this indicator is for it to be used as a measure of land consumption rate.

The indicator is defined as the ratio of land consumption rate to population growth rate. This indicator requires defining two components: population growth and land consumption rate. This indicator has a multipurpose measurement as it is not only related to the type/form of the urbanization pattern. It is also used to capture various dimensions of land use efficiency: economic (proximity of factors of production); environmental (lower per capita rates of resource use and GHG emissions); social (reduced travel distance and cost expended). Finally, this indicator integrates an important spatial component and is fully in line with the recommendations made by the Data Revolution initiative.

Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR), Statistical Institute of Belize (SIB)

Statistical Institute of Belize (SIB)

Quinquennial

Percentage (%)

Globally, land cover today is altered principally by direct human use: by agriculture and livestock raising, forest harvesting and management and urban and suburban construction and development. A defining feature of many of the world’s cities is an outward expansion far beyond formal administrative boundaries, largely propelled using the automobile, poor urban and regional planning and land speculation. A large proportion of cities both from developed and developing countries have high consuming suburban expansion patterns, which often extend to even further peripheries. A global study on 120 cities shows that urban land cover has, on average, grown more than three times as much as the urban population; in some cases, similar studies at national level showed a difference that was three to five times fold. In order to effectively monitor land consumption growth, it is not only necessary to have the information on existing land use cover but also the capability to monitor the dynamics of land use resulting out of both changing demands of increasing population and forces of nature acting to shape the landscape.

Population growth rate (PGR) is the increase of a population in a country during a period, usually one year, expressed as a percentage of the population at the start of that period. It reflects the number of births and deaths during a period and the number of people migrating to and from a country.

Land consumption includes:

(a) The expansion of built-up area which can be directly measured;

(b) the absolute extent of land that is subject to exploitation by agriculture, forestry or other economic activities;

and (c) the over-intensive exploitation of land that is used for agriculture and forestry

Potential Disaggregation:

Disaggregation by location (intra-urban)

Disaggregation by income level

Disaggregation by urban typology

Quantifiable Derivatives:

Population density

Population density growth/reduction rate

Annual amount of urban expansion (km²)

Population Growth Rate = (Total population within the city in the current/final year / Total population within the city in the past/initial year) / The number of years between the two measurement periods.

Land Consumption Rate = (Total areal extent of the urban agglomeration in km² for current year / Total areal extent of the urban agglomeration in km² for past/initial year) / The number of years between the two measurement periods.

This indicator is used by the Land Department to monitor the urban agglomeration.

The indicator may experience difficulties in capturing cities with negative or zero population growth; or cities that due to severe disaster have lost part of their territories. To face this challenge, the baseline/benchmark of population density and its change over time must be taken into consideration. Reducing densities below sustainable levels have impacts on the cities’ sustainability

All the metadata shown in this document was gathered from United Nation Statistics Division. The metadata was extracted from https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/metadata/.