Abstract
This work aims to provide a comprehensive, wall-to-wall analysis of land use/cover changes in the continental areas of Portugal and Spain between 1990 and 2012. This overall objective is developed into two main research questions: (1) Whether differences between the extent and prevalence of changes exist between both countries and (2) which are the hotspots of change (areas where a given land use/cover transition dominates the landscape) in each country. We used Corine Land Cover in three different points in time (1990, 2000, 2012) to explore eight characteristic land cover transitions and carried out a cluster analysis at LAU2 level (municipalities in Spain, parishes in Portugal) that allowed to identify the areas in which each transition was dominant. The main findings include the decline of agricultural area and the increase of urbanized and artificial covers in both countries, but different trends followed by forest cover, with an increase in Spain and a decrease in Portugal. At the same time, the spatial analysis provided an overview of the main gradients of change related to tensions between agricultural intensification–extensification, on the one hand, and deforestation–afforestation, on the other.
Highlights
In the turn of the twentieth century, major land use/cover changes took place in Europe
The main data sources for this study are the 1990, 2000 and 2012 editions of the Corine Land Cover (CLC) project downloaded from the Spanish National Geographic Institute (Instituto Geográfico Nacional) and from the Portuguese Territorial General Directorate (Direçao Geral do Território)
Agricultural areas occupy the largest share in the Iberian Peninsula, covering almost
Summary
In the turn of the twentieth century, major land use/cover changes took place in Europe Among their known drivers were societal changes affecting mountain communities, globalization and major policy/institutional changes, such as the collapse of former socialist regimes and the reforms of the European Common Agricultural Policy [1,2,3]. These transformations have affected most of the more common (in terms of area) land uses/covers, but abandonment of farmland is probably the change that affected a larger area in the European landscapes [4]. Occupation of former agricultural land by urbanization is a matter of concern [7]
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