The MOS, in a few words

In the context of spatial planning, this monitoring of land use can be performed at various scales (nation, regional, and local), and makes it possible to monitor attainment of a variety of objectives, from planning to operational implementation.
For instance, since the 1960s, Norway has been using a cartographic tool that monitors national land use for optimizing its spatial strategy for allocating land, and in particular use of farmland. Containing the necessary information, that geolocation database currently serves as a basis for calculating and for allocating farming subsidies. In France, an approach for monitoring land use on a large scale is currently being developed (by the Céréma, Center for expertise on risks, environment, mobility and planning). It will make it possible to homogenise the approaches and tools, opening up the possibility of making comparisons between regions, and indeed comparisons with other European countries.
At regional level, monitoring of land use can be used as a basis for futures studies. It can be the cartographic basis for a spatial project, as it is in Île-de-France. Thus the Land Use Map (MOS) is one of the Île-de-France planning aids, enabling planning to be economical with space. In addition, by being regularly updated, it will make a major contribution to monitoring and assessing the Region’s Planning and Development Master Plan (SDRIF) up until 2030. Monitoring of land use is also used in a futures study perspective by other urban planning agencies, e.g. in the context of creating SCOTs (schemes for territorially consistent planning and development), as applies for the Lyon-Metropolis area.
At local level, monitoring land use can be an aid for more operational studies. Thus, associated with other data, the EpaMarne (Marne public planning body), together with the design office Biotope, use the MOS for determining the biodiversity issues in local urban projects. That analysis has led to recommendations being drawn up for project managers of the relevant urban planning operations.

Keeping urban development under control and monitoring consumption of farmland, woodland, and natural spaces constitute essential issues in planning. Therefore, it was not by chance that the first thoughts on monitoring land use emerged in the early 1960s, while the 1965 Paris Region Master Plan was being drawn up. In 1982, the first exhaustive inventory of regional land use was taken using a method that enabled it to be compared with future updates. As of being designed, the MOS was thought through as a database making it possible to quantify and to locate the consumption of spaces. Its latest version shows a marked reduction in the consumption of farmland, woodland, and natural spaces from 2008 to 2012.
Beyond the borders of Paris region, monitoring the consumption of spaces is often a decisive objective in implementing tools for monitoring land use. The development of this geographical information uses various techniques (satellite imaging, aerial photographs, tax data, etc.), in order to meet the challenges specific to each local area or territory. In South Africa, the region of Gauteng, which includes Johannesburg, has deployed a system of monitoring land use in addition to the land registry data and that, on the basis of satellite images, makes it possible to monitor the consumption of spaces by the spread of informal housing, which is spreading particularly quickly in the rural areas. In Australia, the State of Victoria is using semi-automatic interpretation of satellite for increasing the frequency of monitoring of farmland and, in particular, for better understanding the damage caused by fires.
In France, Environmental Laws “Grenelle 1” and “Grenelle 2” reassert the importance of limiting urban spread and urban sprawl, while the law n modernization of framing and fishing has set a target of halving the loss of farmland surface areas by 2020. Although certain territories, like the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region or the Provence-Alpes-Côtes d’Azur region, who are particularly urbanized and faced with major urban sprawl, developed regional tools for monitoring land use as early as the 1990s; other areas, in particular territories with SCOTs (schemes for territorially consistent planning and development), are starting to create observatories of land use in order to meet those new legal requirements. The urban planning agency of Caen-Metropolis is thus producing a monitoring tool that aims to publish a layer relating to land use dated 2009, but also, a posteriori, a layer dating from 2000.