EU United Atlas -

Type: Research report
Client: Self-initiated by FRESH
Core team: ir. Henk Hartzema, Dipl. -Ing., ir. Aikaterina Myserli
Status: 2019 – Ongoing

According to EU’s environmental targets for 2030, greenhouse gas emissions should be reduced by 40% (compared to 1990) and 32% of the total energy consumption should derive from renewable energy sources [see: https://ec.europa.eu/clima/citizens/eu_en]. A process such as this to completely reorient the energy infrastructures and a significant proportion of the land use within a territory of this size clearly is not achieved overnight. This ongoing research illustrates the high complexity of this goal and helps governance institutions, policy makers, politicians, companies and citizens to gain a clear understanding of the extreme network of administrative entities, jurisdictions and authorities in the roll-out of a project of this scale.

Part I: The European Perspective

Fig. 1: Geophysical map of Europe. Generated with QGIS, by FRESH@2019

Fig. 2: Political map of EU and selected enighboring countries. Genrated with QGIS by FRESH @2019

Fig.3: Municipalities per country. Generated with QGIS by FRESH @2019

The extreme fragmentation on the local level makes us wonder: Is an integrated transition even possible?

Part II: The Dutch Fragmentation

Fig. 4: Municipalities of the Nethwrlands, FRESH @2019

Next phase of this project will be released in 2020.