Journal
APPLIED GEOGRAPHY
Volume 55, Issue -, Pages 71-81Publisher
ELSEVIER SCI LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.apgeog.2014.09.005
Keywords
Land-use intensification and extensification; Multivariate statistics; Mediterranean Europe; Spain; Urban expansion; Urban-rural relationships
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In the last decades, the process of land-use intensification linked to human activity has changed considerably causing important modifications in the traditional dichotomized urban-rural relationships. Given their more complex dynamics, alternative methodologies for analysing the spatial consequences of changes are required. The present study investigates the variables shaping the urban-rural relationship in Spain over the last 20 years using a synthesizing methodology based on statistical and cartographic techniques that take into account a large number of variables and cases. The study was carried out at the level of local municipalities (nearly 8000 spatial units), fitting 36 socioeconomic and geographical indicators into a multivariate statistical framework. Indicators were selected to describe processes of intensification, extensification, or abandonment implying both land-use changes and important transformations in the local socioeconomic structure. Multivariate analysis identified seven processes contributing to the change in the urban-rural relationship in Spain: urban intensification and sprawl, coastalization, naturbanization, expansion of irrigated crop systems, livestock and pasture expansion, afforestation and reforestation, and depopulation. An in-depth understanding of recent spatial dynamics in Mediterranean countries may inform sustainable land management with the final aim to mitigate or re-balance the impact of these processes in land degradation or in an excessive human pressure along the coastal rim between other undesirable consequences. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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