Recent Trends in Spain’s Developing Territorial Reality (1987-2005): Causes and Effects on Sustainability

Abstract

This article analyses the main trends in the evolution of territory in Spain through the use of different
sources and projects for the period from 1987 to 2005. All of these sources show fi rm evidence of a
series of key processes being under way, such as an ever increasing artifi cial surface growth,
increasing irrigation, a loss of wetlands and major changes in forested areas. These processes are
here held to be related to other key variables: such as the consumption of cement by the Spanish
economy, the importance given to her building industry, the construction of infrastructures, the
rural exodus, forest fi res and agricultural policies that encourage irrigation. All these variables have
their impact on biodiversity, the landscape or the water cycle. In some cases, this impact is all but
irreversible. Overall there has been a sharp decrease and very quick loss of ecosystem services in
the recent past in Spain. The authors conclude that the Spanish Territorial Reality’s evolution has
more to it of an example of the “tragedy of the nation’s common lands” than any “protection of the
commons lands”, this due to the loss of unique and irreplaceable ecosystems such as wetlands,
mature forests or natural shorelines.