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Land abandonment, landscape evolution, and soil erosion in a Spanish Mediterranean mountain region: The case of Camero Viejo by J. Arnaez; T. Lasanta; M. P. Errea; L. Ortigosa is a Environmental Science article available to read on EtoBox.

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## Abstract The Spanish Mediterranean mountains have played an important social and economic role for many centuries. However, since the 1950s these regions have been considered of little economic interest, and this has led to the abandonment of villages, reduced productive activity, and significant changes in the landscape. In the last 50 years the Camero Viejo region (Iberian System, northeast Spain) has been subject to these changes, and was selected as our study area. Landscape evolution and soil erosion, as a result of agricultural abandonment, were studied using different analysis techniques: photointerpretation, geographic information systems and rainfall simulation. The results showed that a large proportion of previously cultivated land has been subject to plant recolonization processes. From 1956 to 2001, woodlands area increased from 10·1 per cent to 37 per cent, and scrubland increased from 42 per cent to 60 per cent. Changes in landscape structure in the same period suggest that the Camero Viejo is in a transitional stage from a highly humanized landscape to a more natural landscape. Although plant cover expansion is evident on most Camero Viejo hillslopes, in some ter

Who reads Land abandonment, landscape evolution, and soil erosion in a Spanish Mediterranean mountain region: The case of Camero Viejo?

Author

J. Arnaez; T. Lasanta; M. P. Errea; L. Ortigosa

Publisher

John Wiley and Sons; Wiley (John Wiley & Sons); John Wiley & Sons Inc.; Wiley; Research Square (ISSN 1085-3278)

Published

2010

Language

EN

Field

Environmental Science (Physical Sciences)