What Drives Built‐Up Area Expansion on Islands? Using Soil Sealing Indicators to Estimate Built‐Up Area Patterns on Aegean Islands, Greece

The dispersion of built‐up areas in peri‐urban zones is considered an important, almost irreversible environmental threat, especially in coastal zones and islands. In this paper, we use soil sealing datasets derived from the European Environment Agency in order to estimate the expansion of built‐up areas in the North and South Aegean islands in Greece. We examine these differences in relation to socio‐economic features of the islands, especially tourism development, second home development and size and geographical position of the islands. The findings show divergent levels of soil sealing and... Mehr ...