Beyond urban–rural dichotomy: Exploring socioeconomic and land-use processes of change in Spain (1991–2011)

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.