Managing Land: Protecting, Integrating, and Allocating Agriculture in Urban Design and Planning—The Case of Luxembourg

he aim of this study was to highlight the potentials and challenges of managing land-use planning through a contemporary case study addressing the future of spatial development in the Luxembourg region. The “Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP)” method, commonly used in Agricultural land-use suitability analysis, was utilised in this study. The application comprises the five criteria of soil water holding capacity, erosion, slope, elevation, and aspect. In determining the weights of the parameters, experts were consulted for their opinions in order to generate an agricultural land suitability map. At the end of the assessment, it was estimated that 27.9% of the study area was of high to highest suitability for agriculture. From this initial investigation, the distribution of suitable areas within the existing perimeters of the built-up area was further estimated, based on a selection of municipalities. The main contribution of this study is the combination of the parameters used in terms of agricultural production and the detailed explanation of the scoring approach, which has not previously been applied to the case of Luxembourg. The study adds valuable insights into current planning discussions in Luxembourg by providing spatial planning guidelines—at an urban and regional scale—on where to develop land while respecting the ecological qualities of its land, in this case the soil quality.