Degree of Urban Dispersion (DIS) 2009 (LEAC Grid), Nov. 2016

The degree of urban dispersion (DIS) characterizes the settlement pattern in a geometric perspective and is based on the distances between any two points within built-up areas (average taken over all possible pairs of points, up to a maximum distance called the horizon of perception). DIS is input to the Weighted Urban Proliferation (WUP) metric, which has three components: the percentage of built-up areas (PBA), the dispersion of the built-up areas (DIS), and land uptake per person (LUP). The new urban sprawl metric, named "Weighted Urban Proliferation“ (WUP) is based on the following definition of urban sprawl: the more area is built over in a given landscape (amount of built-up area) and the more dispersed this built-up area is in the landscape (spatial configuration), and the higher the uptake of built-up area per inhabitant or job (lower utilisation intensity in the built-up area), the higher the degree of urban sprawl. The DIS dataset is used in EEA's Urban Sprawl work indicating urbanisation impacts on the land system. It covers EEA39.