¿Es notable el abandono de tierras en la llamada España Vaciada?

Abstract

Since the turn of the 21st century, the rural populations of many municipalities in Spain have considerably decreased. This demographic phenomenon, known as the Empty Spain, is widely considered as a driver of land abandonment. The main goal of this study was therefore to spatially analyze this phenomenon, by comparing current data on variables such as total population, land use/cover, number of livestock animals, and number of wildfires to data obtained two decades ago, to verify whether land abandonment (the cessation of agricultural activities in a certain land) is remarkable (easily detectable in a national-scale map) in these territories. The Empty Spain phenomenon affects 5,084 out of the 8,043 national municipalities, which encompass 320,000 km2, or more than 60% of the Spanish territory. In the depopulated areas, over 37,000 km2 of traditional agroforestry lands have undergone land-use transformation. Of these lands, 24,000 km2 have changed to grasslands, heathlands, or forests, 8,500 km2 have been converted to intensive agricultural lands (including vineyards, olive groves, and other fruit tree plantations), and an additional 3,000 km2 have been converted to intensive pastures (livestock husbandry intensification). Overall, the data shows that the abandonment of extensive traditional farming systems, and at the same time, the expansion of intensive agricultural land-uses are two coexisting processes that have taken place across the Empty Spain. In ecological terms, these trends of land-use change may cause landscape simplification, with the consequent risks of land degradation and environmental deterioration.