Search

The Born Market building in Barcelona has become a heritage of the city since the seventies when government authorities decided to close it down. The building came to be a reason of dispute between neighbors, academics and the local and provincial governments. Social actors used different conceptions of heritage in order to preserve the building and give it various uses. This paper describes the different stages of the conservancy process of the old market. Similarly, the paper analyzes the conflict that arose between the different viewpoints thus showing how multiple perceptions and interpretations can arise around one place. The research techniques used were over 20 semi-structured interviews with neighbours, tradesmen and architects of the vecinity. A hemerographic review and office work were also carried out. Also, systematic observation of the study area was conducted.

This paper is from investigations for planning urban greenspace and the opportunities of urban agriculture for the feeding of a population in constant increase that does not work the lands. Also it is result of activities of environmental urban improvement carried out with the “School of Engineer Agronomists of the Polytechnic University of Madrid”. Through cases of urban agriculture, understanding by her the set of practices for the food production and ornamental plants in downtowns and in their surroundings, this paper analyze alternatives for the recovery of constructed spaces and increase the quality of life of theirs inhabitants. All this contributes to the creation of wealth and improvement of the urban landscape, always in agreement with criteria of sustainability coming from the Earth Conference of Rio (1992) and the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, Rio+20 (2013).

The aim of this paper is to review the concept of soil sealing and highlight the different methodological approaches used in the EU and especially in Spain. The soil sealing concept has developed from merely physical standpoint (compacted and impermeable soil) to be considered a serious anthropogenic environmental problem, and with mitigation options, as they destroy the vital functions of soil and adversely modifies the ecosystem. This paper proposes unifying methodological criteria, highlighting at least the area affected by territorial unit (municipality, autonomous community, region or country) and most convenient scale in each case. Considering the impact of soil sealing on the environment are proposed typologies for differentiating large cities, from the more invasive to the best adapted to the environment.

This paper aims at making a reconstruction of the historical records of wildland fires in the territory of the Guadiato Valley and the municipality of Cordova, as well as at analysing the influence of fire on the evolution of forest landscape. The research method is based on the use of historical documental sources and bibliographic ones, palaeoecological data and field work, all from a multi-scale approach regarding space and time. The evolution of fire regimes in the study area is determined, also analysing the presence of fire as a tool for land management and as a risk factor, thorough the Holocene and particularly during the 19th and 20th centuries. Starting from these aspects, the paper goes deeper into explaining the character and dynamics of vegetal landscape, into the evolution of the territory’s vulnerability to the risk of wildland fires, and to the prospective study of fire behaviour.

The aim of this paper is to realize a valuation, both quantitative and qualitative, of the contributions focused on rural development that have been published during the last twenty years in the main journals with geographical contents. The selection has comprised 20 Spanish journals, under the subjects geography, economy and tourism, and 77 papers have been considered in our study.

During these last three decades, culture has played a fundamental role in great urban transformations. However, they have involved some changes in social and cultural field not only in downtown Western cities, but also their suburbs. This papers will try to show how cultural strategies for urban renewal processes carried out by Barcelona’s local City Hall has meant, in last term, social homogenization strategies. This paper will end by showing how recent convergence between conservative and liberal sectors of ruling classes of Catalan capital about which cultural strategies must be applied for urban renewal processes could mean the consolidation of new topographies of power in contemporary metropolitan Barcelona.

The aim of this paper consists on clarifying the main attributes of the cultural industry and also to show the panorama of this industry in Spain. For that propose the elements that define the cultural industry will be pointed in the context, not of the Cultural Geography but of the Economic Geography. Also will be identified the main companies of the sector, their process of horizontal and vertical integration and their interrelation with other economic sectors. The paper pays attention to the role of the multimedia companies in the development of the cultural identity at the territories, and the deal of the cultural goods in the international organizations. At this point a thematic and spatial approach has been achieved, so that we can actually describe the main territorial distribution of the Spanish cultural industry, the multimedia groups, their internal structure and their spatial patterns in Spain.

The present paper describes ohe main results of a research project, related to the Guadiamar river disaster after a waste retention wall of a mine in Aznalcúllar broke. The disaster together with a project to create a potential Green Corridor along the Guadiamar river bassin drives to the territorial diagnosis of the recent and old land uses and economie activities. The main objective of (his proposal is to gain the right integration of the new protected area in the surronders. ln attention to the surface of agricultural land, this paper analyzes the present situation and the evolution of land use in orther to compatibilize agricultural activity and conservation proposal.

The actions and processes of renewal are revealed as key to the competitive repositioning of the consolidated tourist areas. However, its implementation generates conflicts. This is due to divergent interests, objectives and logics of operation of the public and private actors. The objective of this paper is to analyze the conflict derived with the strategy of public policy of the tourist destination Islas Canarias (Spain) to link the authorization of the construction of new tourist establishments to the renovation of existing ones. The content analysis or correlate approach has been chosen, so that the subject of research observation has been the process itself and its various temporal moments. It delves in the structural elements that have shaped the conflict (causes, Components, target actors and or effects).

The relation between Geography and Toponymy is remarkable, since place names designate places upon the terrestrial surface, and geography is the science that studies phenomena happening upon those places. In addition, place names are an exceptional tool for reconstituting a disappeared geographic landscape. Geography, History and Linguistics are the three main auxiliary disciplines in order to study place names. A place name analysis of a paradigmatic case (Alacant/Alicante) is studied in this paper. First we review the long, convulsive history of ancient Alicante, which involved the abandonment of its Roman site and its moving –together with its place name– into its current location. We also carry out a geographic analysis of the physical features around the Roman site. Finally we carry out an etymological analysis of this place name and formulate a new hypothesis about its possible meaning.

The Almanzora Area (province of Almería) is one of the most important corridors in Southeast Spain. It is a territory marked by problems common to the contemporary Mediterranean rural world, which in recent decades has been prejudiced by a public administration that has undervalued it's obvious potential for the articulation in this part of the Iberian Peninsula, imposing an unexpected isolation and strengthening –internally-, its economic and social disorganization. In this paper we recognize the current state of locking of this area, analyzing the effects and implications of an erratic territorial policy carried out by the competent public authorities. In the light of the values and tools from Planning, we examine the strategic lines that mark the new existing endogenous initiatives and make proposals to promote their efficient integration into a new development model that allows this territory's unlocking in the near future.

Coastal commercial fishing is a common economic practice for local populations of natural protected areas which encompass both maritime and terrestrial environments. The aim of this paper is to describe the organizational pattern of coastal commercial fishing in the Ría Celestún Biosphere Reserve (northeast of the Yucatan peninsula). It explains how the organization and official regulations of the above-mentioned activity are completed by the distribution of spaces of utilization, which is embedded in its socio-cultural context, and is currently being modified by the demand conditions of international markets (US, European and Asian). The research is based on quantitative data provided by public institutions and private entities, as well as on qualitative data obtained during the field work.

This paper aims to make a quantitative, theoretical and conceptual approximation to the situation of public spaces in Gran Santiago (Chile). In the first part, the urban public space is defined as a platform for meeting and social interaction. This is especially necessary in a historically segregated city, which has resulted in social fragmentation. Second, the different types of public spaces existing in Gran Santiago are characterized, understanding them in direct relation to the different scales and territorial hierarchies that have place in a diffuse metropolitan city.

This paper tries to show the difficulties of being able to provide adequate and accurate prediction for decision-making in the field of natural hazard management. From the geographical point of view, we try to make a description of the process, of the physical and human environment, and predictions will remain in the realm of statistics.Being able to understand when, how and where can occur a change in dynamic environments becomes the first problem that the risk and disaster experts must undertake. The systems move, interact, appear and disappear, but they are governed by natural and physical laws that we must be able to understand and to implement in any geographical work that requires a real approach to the processes of decision-making to avoid as far as possible the losses of life and property.

The processes of segregation and residential preference between the host society and different ethnic groups have produced a productive academic debate which it has been reflected among others in the so-called theories of threat and contact. This paper aims to contribute to this discussion by studying the spatial behavior of the immigrant population. For this purpose have been created two study groups according to their degree of rejection in Spanish society. The results in the metropolitan area of Seville during the period 2003-2013 show a clear separation between residential concentration´s areas of both groups. This division increases with the increase of economic immigration in Seville, reaffirming the already noted trend in other research to the preference of the host society by social and ethnically uniform neighborhoods.

This paper proposes a methodology for analyze coastal territories focused on the functional analysis. It establishes analysis and diagnosis procedures for the activities of a coastal territory, and organizes its monitoring during time, allowing a consistent definition for the coastal territories as engines spaces or integrated spaces

The Spanish dehesa and its Portuguese correspondance (montado) are Mediterranean agrarian-forestrypastoral systems projecting an outstanding landscape whith big heritage values. On them loom new or renewed threats that compromise their future at a time (the current) with an increasing social and institutional revaluation of these landscapes. Its nomination as an Unesco cultural landscape can provide a powerful tool to deal with these threats, but requires the clarification of certain questions related to the scales. This paper delves into the dehesa outstanding universal value and offers some clues to support their possible incorporation into the Unesco World Heritage List. Analysis undertakes at the level of types of landscape, but some criteria are advanced for the selection of concrete and representative areas capable of integrating a nomination as a serial property.

Russafa neighborhood in Valencia (Spain) has become the center of one of the most ambitious urban redevelopment plans implemented by the local council in recent years. This old neighborhood of merchants and artisans, that during the 80's and 90’s experienced a long period of degradation and neglect, is today the multicultural trendy district for tourists and citizens The aim of this paper is to show the gentrification process emerged in this neighborhood, and how from the abandonment that characterized it just a decade ago, it has undergone a fast process of festivalization and economic transformation with the arrival of the “creative classes”, that so far has caused few reactions, despite being a historically active neighborhood in urban social movements. We will focus on the study of the retail sector in order to illustrate and analyze this process, using GIS and distinguishing three types of stores: traditional, immigrant and gentrifiying stores.

The strong drive of building construction between mid-nineties until 2007 and its further rapid and Sharp crises in Spain, although has been described in detail, could not be understood, however, without considering and analyzing the underlying territorial and social processes over they are based on. The objective of this paper is to analyze the relationship between residential mobility and housing construction in metropolitan areas, coming from the hypothesis that the first one is the main factor to explain the drive for housing construction in these areas. To test such hypothesis, it has been carried out, at a municipal level, a statistical analysis of the relationships between residential mobility flows and housing construction in the metropolitan areas of Madrid and Seville. Results shows a setting in which each municipality bids up to attract increasing proportions of the residential mobility flows, with the subsequent oversized dwelling stock in these urban spaces

A significant increase in episodes of flooding on the coast of Murcia occurred in last decades, questioning the role of preventive strategies on planning. In this paper is evaluated the efficiency of river channel protection actions included in the Guidelines and Planning of Región de Murcia Coast. The cadastral information and the hydrological modeling of 10, 50, 100 and 500 years of return period have been used to study the evolution of vulnerability. The results shows that exposure to risk has continued to increase even after the adoption of these guidelines, becoming a key factor in the increase of economic losses associated with flooding.

This paper presents the main methodological features of one research about the processes of urbanization and transformation of urban centers in the plain of the Alt Empordà (Girona). Through this methodology has been identified a new and complex urban model, which is deployed on the territory with new patterns of urbanization. On the one hand cartography and GIS have made possible the analysis of different patterns of urban development. On the other hand, the interviews allowed more complex understanding of aspects such as the factors that are behind the changes and the role that different actors in urban and territorial dynamics. This methodology is applicable to other coastal areas of Catalonia, the whole of Spain and other parts of Mediterranean Europe.

In August 1868 a team of surveyors from the General Statistics Board of Spain ("Junta General de Estadística"), led by José Giralt Torner, began field work needed to produce a reliable mapping of the Royal Site of Riofrío (Segovia, Spain). The survey was part of a more ambitious project, which aimed the inventory and demarcation of the Royal Heritage. Maps formed by the surveyors of the General Statistics Board, which are preserved in the archive of the National Geographic Institute, are an irreplaceable historical source, without possible comparison with the iconographic sources of the nineteenth century. This paper, which is based basically on primary sources, report on the preserved cartography, describes the survey system, and identify the protagonists of these works.