Lower Austria leads Austria in daily land consumption

Lower Austria has some of Austria’s stronger rules on soil protection but consumes more land than any other state, according to a comparison by ORF. An average of 1.9 hectares of land was newly used each day between 2022 and 2025, while the state government points to a decline in land consumption.

WWF compared the soil policies of all nine Austrian states for the first time. The assessment covered spatial planning, settlement boundaries, protection of agricultural and natural areas, commercial sites, road construction, housing and vacant properties.

No state reached the categories “solid” or “exemplary”. Salzburg ranked first with a score of 3.1, followed by Lower Austria with 3.2. Both were classified as “incomplete”.

High land consumption

Lower Austria also ranked near the top in per-capita land consumption. Each resident accounted for 952 square metres of consumed land, the second-highest figure after Burgenland. WWF said the figures were particularly high in rural parts of the Waldviertel and Weinviertel regions.

Sealed land accounted for 489 square metres per person, around one-third above the national average. Transport infrastructure made up nearly half of the total sealed area.

Lower Austria also had the third-highest amount of designated building land, at 504 square metres per person. More than one-fifth of that land remains undeveloped.

The state has an average of 21 metres of road per resident, compared with about 14 metres nationally. More than one-third of Lower Austria’s road network consists of state roads.

WWF identifies positive measures

Despite the high consumption figures, WWF identified several positive elements in Lower Austria’s spatial planning. Settlement boundaries exist in around 70 percent of municipalities. In principle, new building land cannot be designated outside those boundaries.

The organisation also welcomed so-called area-wide settlement boundaries, which prevent the overall building-land area of smaller communities from expanding further.

Around one-quarter of agricultural land is protected through designated agricultural priority areas. Additional categories protect valuable green spaces. WWF said, however, that these protections can often be bypassed under certain conditions.

New building-land designations are subject to comparatively extensive requirements. Rezoning outside existing built-up areas is generally intended to happen only in exceptional cases, while new building areas larger than two hectares are restricted.

Criticism of business parks and roads

WWF gave Lower Austria a poorer assessment for the specific drivers of land consumption. Large commercial zones may generally be designated only under certain conditions, but the organisation criticised the state’s 16 large ecoplus business parks. It said intermunicipal or state-level planning did not automatically ensure economical use of land.

Road construction was the organisation’s strongest point of criticism. WWF said both spatial-planning and road legislation lacked clear and effective requirements. At the same time, Lower Austria is planning by far the largest expansion of the state road network among Austria’s states. Strategic environmental assessments are not provided for this expansion, according to WWF.

Potential in vacant properties

WWF also sees substantial potential in the use of vacant properties and in adding density to existing built-up areas. It said this potential was not being used sufficiently before new commercial and residential areas were created.

Municipalities can designate central zones, and funding is available to revitalise town centres. According to WWF, binding incentives and rules for dealing with vacant properties are largely lacking. The organisation did welcome bonuses for construction in town centres and funding for renovations.

The office of Lower Austria’s deputy governor, Stephan Pernkopf of the Austrian People’s Party, took a positive view of the development. It said the decline in land consumption and the state’s second-place ranking in the comparison showed the successful efforts of the state and municipalities. The statement added that this positive trend would continue.