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The Mar Menor, a coastal lagoon located in the southeast of Spain, is one of the largest lagoons on the Mediterranean coastline. This singular area is subject to a wide range of uses, including large tourist resorts and intensive agriculture. The importance of the lagoon and its salt marshes in terms of biodiversity has been recognised in numerous international protection programmes. The distinctive environment of the lagoon has long been attractive for visitors. A surge in tourist activities has taken place in the area since the early 1960s, characterised by intense urban development along the lagoon’s perimeter to accommodate the growing seasonal population. This phenomenon has particularly affected La Manga, a sandy bar that is 20 km in length. La Manga acts as a barrier between the lagoon and the Mediterranean Sea, crossed by fimore or less functional channels called ‘golas’. The urbanization process has changed the water fl ow system between the inside and seawater through the channels. The changes have affected coastal dynamics, the longitudinal profi le of the coast and the lagoon’s ecosystem. The coastal lagoon is also highly threatened by other pollution variables derived from agricultural lands. The water derived from the Tajo-Segura transfer generated a profound land transformation of the adjacent agricultural areas, which changed from extensive dry crop farming to intensively irrigated crops, disturbing the lagoon dramatically. This paper analyses both land transformations around the coastal perimeter of the Mar Menor during the last 50 years and shows the environmental impact with its consequences on the ecosystem. Although numerous biological studies have been carried out in the Mar Menor, a better understanding of the consequences of land transformation in the perimeter of the lagoon is still necessary to understand the lagoon’s situation. The results of territorial management in the Mar Menor lagoon need to be addressed in order to develop successful strategies in the area to protect this valuable ecosystem and its services.

Spain is a country with a large high-speed rail network (HSR or AVE by its initials in Spanish). Most of this railway network was built between 2000 and 2007. Network deployment involves addressing many issues, particularly station localization. The traditional railway network in Spain has a different track gauge to that in the rest of Europe so historical stations do not always serve the high-speed network. In 2000, the first proposal for the railway network of Valencia was published. The authors research team realized two studies on the metropolitan railway network and better station localization in 2002 and 2006. In particular, these studies proposed an intermodal station in an airport to integrate travel flights and travel high-speed train. Between 2008 and 2010, a new provisional high-speed railway station in Valencia was built: Joaquin Sorolla Station. This paper analyses the initial proposal, the actual situation and trends after 2006 on airport–railway station relations in other cities, such as Madrid or Barcelona.

L Horta de Valencia is a peri-urban agricultural space with recognized values as a heritage: historic, cultural, agricultural, economic, landscape and natural resource. Across Europe, there are only six similar landscapes according DOBRIS report of European Environment Agency (1998). Many studies and authors show their values. This historical zone is irrigated from Medieval Age by seven channels of Túria s river, and irrigation water is managed by specific organization of seven Irrigation Community, one for each channel, with a historical Court of Waters. UNESCO named the Court of Waters as a World Heritage. The surface of historical irrigation zones was very extensive with about 23.000 has. Today there are about 12.000 ha. There have been several attempts to plan and protect this area and landscape, but so far, none has succeeded. Last attempt was in about 2006 by Territorial Action Plan to Protect Horta of Valencia, finalized in 2010 but not approved. Meanwhile, urbanization of agricultural areas have continued. In fact, this situation occurs a result of management problems. Protection of anthropic spaces requires maintenance of existing economic activities, particularly agricultural activities but not only. Stakeholders expect more incomes by urbanization processes. Therefore, the main problem to execute with success any plan is the management agricultural space to maintain economic activities associates to agricultural landscape. This paper analyze the behavior of stakeholders and structural causes that explain failure of Horta planning and propose management systems to generate objective conditions in order to maintain this exceptional landscape

Medellín is the center of a metropolitan area that occupies part of the Aburrá Valley. Between 2012 and 2013, the National University of Colombia, local office of Medellín, conducting the study Proposal for the Development of the Metropolitan Green Belt of Aburrá Valley. The study aims to develop a project of ecological planning in the metropolitan region around Medellín in Colombia. The area includes 10 municipalities comprising the metropolitan conurbation of Medellín. The project designs an intervention strategy to promote meaningful protection for the provision of ecosystem services urban areas. The project designs an intervention strategy to promote protection of meaningful areas for the urban provision of ecosystem services. The set of strategies has been termed Metropolitan Green Belt of Aburrá Valley. It is defined three geographical areas of intervention: The External Belt for water regulation, System of Urban-Rural Transition for dissipation and containing urban expansion and Ecological Connection Structure. Each area has been associated with a key concept and a major ecosystem service. The three areas, spatially integrated, constitute the green belt. Have also been raised seven management strategies for a planning horizon of 17 years (Consistent with the 2030 vision of the metropolitan city). The work shows the conceptual coherence between ecological conservation goals and objectives of spatial planning. It also reveals the social and political acceptance with planning actions that invoke ideas of ecological conservation. This project was develop between 2012 and 2013 by a team from the National University of Colombia (School of Urban-Regional Planning) and funded by the Metropolitan Area of the Aburrá Valley, a regional government. The authors was participate in the project as a technical coordination (L.C. Agudelo) and international consultant (J.L. Miralles).

[EN] The period between 1997 and 2007 was a period of economic expansion in Europe, and especially in Spain, where it was based on the real estate bubble. Valencian Country, in Mediterranean coast, is a special case inside Spain because its economy specialized in the housing construction sector for non-primary houses. House construction was possible due to the increase in private debt of developers and buyers. The (artificially self-generated) expectation of strong annual increases in housing values maintained an intense construction activity. In 2007, the price of houses peaked and then began a process of impoverishment due to the payment of debts. Today this process is still going on, but extensive data on the complete cycle of expansion and regression of the housing bubble are already available. This paper presents a real description of the complete process of non-sustainable urban development in Valencian Country and analyzes the process in economic, social and environmental terms. Finally, a general scheme of the process and a system of sustainability is proposed.

[ES] La Manga del Mar Menor in the Region of Murcia every year reaches a population of more than 250,000 people during the summer, with only a few thousand in winter. This crowded environment with an asymmetric behaviour submits annual progressive impoverishment in its economic return. This questionable profitability is the result of a misguided urban development, and its results are analysed through the evolution of the land market and the resulting urbanization in the last 50 years using a GIS methodology., [EN] Urban planning is a lengthy and settled process which results usually emerge after several years or even decades. That is why it is necessary for a proper urban design of cities to use parameters that are able to predict and gauge the potential long-term behaviour of urban development. In the tourist towns of the Mediterranean coast, the long-term design is often at odds with the generation of business profits in the short term. We present here the results of this phenomenon for an interesting case of Spanish Mediterranean coastal city created from scratch in the 60s and turned into a tourist destination today hypertrophied. La Manga del Mar Menor in the Murcia region every year is reaching a population of more than 250,000 people during the summer, which are reduced to a few dozen in winter. This crowded environment with an asymmetric behaviour submits annual progressive impoverishment in its economic return. This questionable profitability is the result of a misguided urban development and the results are analyzed through the evolution of the land market and the resulting urban in the last 50 years with a SIG methodology.

The urbanization process that shapes the current Mediterranean coast started in Spain with mass tourism, encouraged by the National Law of Tourist Interest Areas in 1963 as a strategic investment. Fifty years after its implementation, it is necessary to conduct a retrospective analysis of the results, for the evaluation of the goals set in the 60s. The evolution of the economic, political and legal parameters show certain deviations from the initial forecasts of many urban plans carried out in coastal places created from scratch. The case of La Manga del Mar Menor is certainly an enlightening example of the results that have been achieved on a mass tourist destination. La Manga, located in the coastal Region of Murcia (south-eastern Spain), is a destination of 250,000 holidaymakers in summer which was a desert dune in the 60s. The study of feedback between a tourist model and urban planning reveals the problems of a tourist product to maintain its attractiveness in the long term. The short-term benefit of second homes versus hotels, the cost of maintaining the locations with high seasonality in demand or the target customer in a tourist destination are elements heavily influenced by urban planning in coastal cities. In this paper, all these elements will be distributed to either side of the balance, in order to evaluate the validity of the La Manga model.

The urbanization process that shapes the present Mediterranean coast started with the mass tourism that encouraged the Centres and Areas of National Tourist Interest law in 1962, as a strategic national investment. 50 years after its implementation, it is necessary to conduct a retrospective analysis of the results, assessing to what extent have the stated goals in the 1960s been met. The evolution of the macroeconomic, political and legal parameters show certain deviations from initial forecasts of many large urban plans carried out in coastal places created from scratch. The case of La Manga del Mar Menor on the Murcia coast a target for 250,000 holidaymakers which came from a desert dune in the 1960s, is certainly an example; poorly documented while enlightening, of the results that have been achieved. The study of real social and economic performance as a tourism product against territorial and landscape impacts, the problem of governance in the context of urban planning and the ability of private property to develop its own sustainable projects in the long run has been approached with the detail and objectivity that allows a comprehensive case study contrasted by the facts. All these elements will be distributed to either side of the balance, in order to evaluate the validity of a coastal development model, that after five decades we can now begin to postulate with enough research perspective.

The period 1997 2007 was a period of economic expansion in Europe, particularly in Spain. The expansion occurred based on easy credit in a globalized economy. In Spain, a large part of the credit was allocated to civil works and construction of housing. So it caused a housing bubble that burst in 2007. Thus, in the period 1997 2007 unsustainable urban development was produced in Spain. Today we know a lot of the historical data of the process and its consequences in the economic recession lasting from 2007 to the present. Nowadays, it is possible to systematize the features of urban development, economic processes and behaviors of different social agents during the unsustainable development and after in Spain. Particularly in Spain, Valencia promoted especially this development model and, consequently, has become one of the paradigmatic cases. In addition, tourist residential demand has played an important role throughout this process. Tourist activity is a very important economic sector in Spain and especially on the Valencian and Mediterranean coast. This paper is a synthesis of the evolution of the main variables that explain in this case the unsustainable urban development process taking into account environmental, economic and social aspects. It also identifies the consequences. The analysis draws conclusions that can be generalized in this type of process. This allows us to generate proposals to identify the objective conditions that must be met in sustainable urban development.

La Manga del Mar Menor is an ancient dune line located in the Murcia Region (Spain). This area had an accelerated urbanization process starting in the 1960s which has had several powerful impacts on the coast, the landscape and the marine ecosystem. Among these impacts, the so-called process of mediterraneanisation of the inland lake is particularly interesting. The Mar Menor is a salty lagoon of more than 170 km2 and uniform drafts about 5 meters deep. This lagoon is a former bay of the Mediterranean Sea closed in a natural way by the sandbar of La Manga with a length of about 20 km. In 1950, this sandbar was a desert land. In around 1960 there was a tourism project to host up to 60,000 people. At present, it receives up to 250,000 people in the summer, mostly of Spanish origin. The urbanization process changed the system water flows between the inside and the seawater through channels called golas . The changes affected the coastal dynamics, the longitudinal profile of the coast and the lagoon ecosystem. Three processes in particular have caused major environmental impacts: land filling of water areas for the construction of infrastructure and building, connecting islands with routes and expanding channels and building ports for use by recreational vessels. Fifty years after the initial process, this paper analyzes the current coastal pathologies and how the urbanization process has caused them.

The extraordinary urban development that has occurred in Spain in the period of 1997–2007 allows us to analyze directly the generated environmental problems. In this period, between 300,000 and 900,000 houses were built in Spain each year and many of them were built on the Mediterranean coast. In many areas of new urban development, houses are unsold because there is no market and many areas are completely urbanized but not built on. So this reality is a great laboratory where we can directly check the environmental consequences of unjustified urban developments. There is legislation for the prevention of the environmental impacts of urbanization in Spain. This legislation has failed to avoid unnecessary urban development although it has produced clear environmental impacts. The F. Eiximenis research group analyzed select cases on the Valencian coast (between Sagunto and Cullera) for assessing the environmental effects of these urban developments, particularly concerning the transformation of the soil’s environmental value, the consumption of resources and the emissions. The land transformation has been analysed by CORINE data, digital images and direct observation. This paper explains the situation produced and the main findings of the research.

The European Union (EU) promoted some important changes with the Directives to implement the Aarhus Convention and the Strategic Environmental Assessment. Spain developed the Directives with some Acts in 2006 and incorporated the sustainable development principle in land regulation, land planning, land activity, land transformation and land use with Acts in 2007. However, in Spain, for environmental matters, the central laws regulate only a general framework and rules for central plans and programmes. The autonomous communities must approve any complementary laws with a detailed application, especially in urban planning matters. In this moment the Autonomous Community of Valencia (ACV) does not have any special regulation for strategic environmental assessment of urban planning, but, at the same time, the ACV publishes some acts for urban planning and approves guidelines concerning sustainability, citizens’ quality of life and land planning. It is obliged to apply these guidelines to urban planning. The new proceedings and documents that these new Laws require one to elaborate the Urban Plan are not foreseen in ACV legislation. All these matters generate a situation of juridical insecurity. Anyway the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) have a special methodological relation. Paradoxically, urban plans in the ACV have been subject to EIA since 1999. There is therefore, a great experience on this matter with a type of environmental

The last real estate cycle in Spain is a paradigmatic example of non sustainable development. The extraordinary urban development in the 1997-2007 period produced an extraordinary economic growth based on land speculation and housing. The end of the cycle generates a very severe economic crisis, one that is the most serious economic crisis in a long time. This process has economic, social and environmental repercussions; from the economic point of view Spain has a temporally increased its GDP. The real estate activity has generated houses, and land able to be developed, but without use and without a market. From the social point of view, the Spanish people have changed their system of moral value. It takes as an ideal rapid enrichment without effort and without producing useful goods and services, and from the environmental point of view, on building over an extensive area without use. It is an irreversible process of rural land transformation. All land conversion is carried out by urban planning; the landscape changes and “urban sprawl” increases.

The Valencian Community is located in the Spanish Mediterranean area. At present the whole Spanish Mediterranean is living through a process greatly accelerated by urban development. This process is generated, fundamentally, by the demand for housing by the population of Europe’s central and northern areas in a situation of global economy. These processes suppose an irreversible transformation of the territory which is not always justified. The dysfunctions produced in these processes forced the regional Valencian government to reform, in depth, all the legislation in matters dictating new laws: Soil for non urbanize Law of 2004, Law of regional planning and protection of the landscape of 2004 and Urban development Valencian Law of 2005. This legislative wide and extensive set introduces in to urban development planning the whole set of procedures orientated to the environmental sustainability. The regulation establishes novel measurements as, amongst others, the indicators of sustainability, the quotas of sustainability to pay when the sustainability limits are exceeded, the Fund of Territorial Equity, the programs and projects for the sustainability and the quality of life, the transfer to the administration of an equal surface magnitude of natural reserve as that of any new urbanization, and the obligation of landscape studies. In spite of all this it continues without approaching an administrative reform that generates a system of management that really guarantees the protection of the natural resources in the short and long term. The present text analyzes the innovative elements that interfere for the sustainability of the urban development planning and it also indicates the still not solved aspects.

A correlational study of the reliability of acoustic voice parameters was made of 148 healthy adults. Acoustic analysis was performed with MDVP-Multi-Dimensional Voice Program implemented in a CSL-Computerized Speech Lab of Kay Elemetrics. A set of 29 voice parameters were obtained from two samples of sustained vowel /a/ recorded from each subject. General results separated by sex are showed and the test-retest reliability in each pair of measures was calculated. Data show a high intra-subject stability of Frequency Fundamental parameters; acceptable stability in parameters of Frequency and Amplitude Perturbation, Noise, Subharmonics and Voice irregularities; and a very low consistency in Tremor parameters. Parameters related with shimmer were more reliable than parameters related with jitter. According to results several conclusions are reported.

The Work is a study of quality voice in laryngectomy patients with speech prosthetic supports. We have studied the quality voice objective and subjective. We explain the results.