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The second mechanism is that the change in land use that results from socio-economic development may lead to changes in the hydrological characteristics of a catchment, which in turn may cause an increase in peak floods. This effect, however, is difficult to demonstrate in real data, and only becomes significant in small catchments with large-scale changes in land use.

The methods to quantify socio-economic changes like urban sprawl and soil sealing land use and especially their potential future impacts on water management should be further improved (EC 2015b). Whether or not land use change significantly affects flood risks depends first on the location of the land use change. Land use changes in the floodplains have a direct impact on flood risk because they affect the invested values at risk, and they may also increase water levels during floods. The effects of changes in the wider catchment depend on the scale of changes relative to the scale of the catchment (e.g. (ICPR 2006)).

Guiding land use change can, it least in theory, be realised by spatial planning policies. However, Spatial planning is not subject to EU regulation, except at sea under the Maritime Spatial Planning Directive (EU 2014b). In practice, the implementation of planning policies is often incomplete due to a lack of specific instruments and measures for implementation in practice (Mickwitz, et al., 2009; Swart, et al., 2009; IPCC 2014, Chapter 23: Europe)(. In addition, spatial planning and water management have for a long time been viewed as separate management problems (EEA 2012c), where the interests of flood risk management are sometimes valued lower than those of competing economic functions such as agriculture (see also text box 4.5), housing (ARUP 2011) or infrastructure.