SummaryThe aim of this work is to reconstruct the main economy-wide/material flow accounting indicators for the Spanish economy between 1860 and 2010. The main results indicate that from 1960 onward, the country saw a very rapid industrial transition based on the domestic extraction of quarry products and the import of fossil fuels and manufactured goods. Direct material consumption rose from 58.7 million tonnes (Mt) in 1860 to 570.2 Mt in 2010. In per capita terms, it rose from 2.76 tonnes per capita per year (t/cap/yr) to 11.61 t/cap/year. Of the decennial years studied in this article, a peak of 15.23 t/cap/yr occurs in the year 2000; the subsequent fall is explained by the crisis of 2008. Until 1930, Spain was a net exporter of resources, but since that year, and especially since 1960, it began to depend heavily on overseas resources. The physical trade balance per inhabitant in Spain was -0.01 t/cap/year in 1860 and today it is 2.45 t/cap/year. This process also reveals the change in consumption patterns, which became increasingly dependent on abiotic resources. In 1860, 98.1% of resources consumed was biomass, whereas today the figure is 16.2%. In all events, this article shows how, although the great transformation did not occur until 1960, before that date the country saw significant qualitative transformation, which did not involve relevant changes in the mobilization of resources.
Studies on the role of nutrient balances in the socioecological transition of agriculture are scarce, particularly in the Mediterranean region where manure availability was low. The role of nutrient balance in this transition was evaluated in three representative localities of the inland Mediterranean region of southern Spain from 1750 to 1900. Changes in cropland distribution, population, manure availability and demand, and nutrient balance at cropland and aggregated scales were assessed. Data suggest that agriculture development around 1750 was limited by manpower. During this period manure availability was higher than demand and municipal balances for nitrogen were positive, whereas they were slightly negative for phosphorus and potassium. During the 19th century, the population increased while livestock numbers and manure availability decreased. Nutrient balances become negative at crop and aggregate scales, indicating that productivity was based on soil mining. This territorial imbalance and soil mining were the main reasons behind the turn-of-the-century crisis which led to the agrarian socioecological transition.
This paper documents the origin and conceptual ambiguity of the terms Sustainable, Ecological and Agroecological Intensification. It defines the concept of Ecological Intensification from an agroecological perspective, and examines in energy terms whether it may be sustainable. To illustrate the theory, we apply Land Cost of Sustainable Agriculture (LACAS) methodology to Spanish agriculture, which is representative of Mediterranean agroclimatic conditions. As a result, we demonstrate the impossibility of generalizing an extensive Organic Farming (OF) scenario under the techniques currently used by organic farmers. This is due to the fact that it would bring about a reduction of 13% in agricultural production. Which necessarily means that OF has to be intensified under agroecological criteria. This option is also explored in two scenarios. As a result, we show that it is possible to compensate the yield gap between OF and conventional agriculture by implementing low-entropy internal loop strategies which reduce the land cost of generating the necessary nitrogen flows. However, these cannot exceed the limits established by the structure of Spanish territory. That is, agroecological intensification cannot be prolonged indefinitely over time since it is limited by the land available.
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