Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
8.5 Discussion
8.5.1 Coupling land use with socioeconomic changes
From the description of the recent land use changes in the Mediterranean mountains
it becomes clear that there are two main but opposite trends, which are shown in Fig-
ure 8.6. One is occurring in the southern Mediterranean, primarily in the Maghreb
countries and secondarily in Turkey, where the trend is towards reduction of forest
and rangeland cover in favour of arable farms. The other (opposite) trend is oc-
curring in the northern Mediterranean, in southern Europe, where rangeland and
especially forest cover is increasing at the expense of mountain farms (Figure 8.7).
In the first case, the main driving force is population growth and the associated de-
mand for arable and grazing land in the mountains for food production, while in the
second case it is the rural depopulation and land abandonment. Between 1950 and
1998, the population of Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia increased by 300% while the
population of Portugal, Spain, France and Italy grew by only 30% (Puigdefabregas
Mediterranean
mountains
South
Mediterranean
North
Mediterranean
Increased
population
pressure
Rural
emigration
Forest and
rangeland
clearing
Land
abandonment
Pine
forest
expansion
Hardwood
forest
expansion
Intensive
grazing
Intensive
farming
Increased
wildfire
risk
Decreased
biodiversity
Increased soil
erosion risk
Figure 8.6
Generalized course of the land use changes in the mountains of the southern and
northern Mediterranean countries
