Evolución histórica de la Superficie Agrícola Utilizada en Galicia (1962-2006). Integración de fuentes estadísticas y cartográficas

Abstract

In 2007 the regional Parliament of Galicia passed a law for the creation of a regional Land Bank. Among its objectives, the law establishes the conservation of the Utilized Agricultural Area (UAA) in the region and the restoration of the UAA that had been lost in previous years. Previous work by other authors, based on the study of data from Agricultural Census, had reached the conclusion that, effectively, UAA had decreased in Galicia during the last half Century. Considering that the study of land use changes requires the analysis of different sources of information, both statistical and cartographic, this work is aimed at the revision of those conclusions about the evolution of UAA, based on the integration of other sources of data (statistical yearbooks, land use maps, SIGPAC, among others). Conclusions of this work confirm the existence of a drop of UAA, but place the period of biggest decrease in the decades after 1990 and propose an estimation of affected area around 75,000 ha.