CHANGES IN LAND RESOURCES IN EUROPEAN UNION MEMBER STATES

Economic development, in addition to quantitative and qualitative progress, is also associated with structural changes. This particularly concerns agricultural land resources. The analysis included in the paper concerns changes in land resources in the countries that were members of the European Union in 2024. Both changes in the utilized agricultural area (UAA) and changes in the area of arable land (AL), permanent meadows and pastures, permanent crops, temporary fallow and arable land area per capita were analyzed in detail. For most indicators, the assessment was carried out for the years 1993-2022, which conditioned the availability of data. The results of the analysis included indicate a significant loss of agricultural land resources in the EU-27 countries. This process should be assessed as a major threat to the food security of the EU and individual countries. Agricultural land designated for the development of industry, communication infrastructure or housing development should be considered as irretrievably lost from an environmental point of view.