The economic, urban and social development of the territory that makes up the European Mediterranean area is based on many variables of very different fields. The infrastructure policy, urban growth of cities or sustainable use of land and energy resources are decisions that need to be planned in order to establish priorities to optimize these processes. However, it is important to note that all of these fields are influenced by a multitude of interrelated economic, political or social parameters. Now that numerous protocols are appearing worldwide to develop these processes within cities (the so-called "smart cities"), the real challenge for the future is to make the leap from the urban scale to the regional scale and deploy these policies in an integrated manner, in so-called "smart territories".This article presents a model of territorial analysis that consists of more than 50 indicators implemented in territorial information systems. The model is based on research conducted in the Otremed project, a multilateral project funded by ERDF and developed between 2009 and 2013 by various countries and institutions of the Mediterranean area. Through the results and tools developed in this project, the so-called GIS retrospective analysis is proposed. This tool, designed to help in decision-making and to advance future diagnostics in territorial management, will allow the development policies of cities to be optimized, generating synergies in transport infrastructures and planning with sustainable criteria in land and other resources use. All these processes will be integrated at regional level with an innovative methodology based on the analysis of territory evolution through referenced geographic information tools.
The urbanization process that shapes the present Mediterranean coast started with the mass tourism that encouraged the Centres and Areas of National Tourist Interest law in 1962, as a strategic national investment. 50 years after its implementation, it is necessary to conduct a retrospective analysis of the results, assessing to what extent have the stated goals in the 1960s been met. The evolution of the macroeconomic, political and legal parameters show certain deviations from initial forecasts of many large urban plans carried out in coastal places created from scratch. The case of La Manga del Mar Menor on the Murcia coast -a target for 250,000 holidaymakers -which came from a desert dune in the 1960s, is certainly an example; poorly documented while enlightening, of the results that have been achieved. The study of real social and economic performance as a tourism product against territorial and landscape impacts, the problem of governance in the context of urban planning and the ability of private property to develop its own sustainable projects in the long run has been approached with the detail and objectivity that allows a comprehensive case study contrasted by the facts. All these elements will be distributed to either side of the balance, in order to evaluate the validity of a coastal development model, that after five decades we can now begin to postulate with enough research perspective.
The Mar Menor, a coastal lagoon located in the southeast of Spain, is one of the largest lagoons on the Mediterranean coastline. This singular area is subject to a wide range of uses, including large tourist resorts and intensive agriculture. The importance of the lagoon and its salt marshes in terms of biodiversity has been recognised in numerous international protection programmes.The distinctive environment of the lagoon has long been attractive for visitors. A surge in tourist activities has taken place in the area since the early 1960s, characterised by intense urban development along the lagoon's perimeter to accommodate the growing seasonal population. This phenomenon has particularly affected La Manga, a sandy bar that is 20 km in length. La Manga acts as a barrier between the lagoon and the Mediterranean Sea, crossed by fi ve more or less functional channels called 'golas'. The urbanization process has changed the water fl ow system between the inside and seawater through the channels. The changes have affected coastal dynamics, the longitudinal profi le of the coast and the lagoon's ecosystem. The coastal lagoon is also highly threatened by other pollution variables derived from agricultural lands. The water derived from the Tajo-Segura transfer generated a profound land transformation of the adjacent agricultural areas, which changed from extensive dry crop farming to intensively irrigated crops, disturbing the lagoon dramatically.This paper analyses both land transformations around the coastal perimeter of the Mar Menor during the last 50 years and shows the environmental impact with its consequences on the ecosystem. Although numerous biological studies have been carried out in the Mar Menor, a better understanding of the consequences of land transformation in the perimeter of the lagoon is still necessary to understand the lagoon's situation. The results of territorial management in the Mar Menor lagoon need to be addressed in order to develop successful strategies in the area to protect this valuable ecosystem and its services.
Economic growth theories indicate that infrastructures are necessary but not enough for economic growth, providing the cities they serve with new comparative advantages. Today, 25 years after the first high-speed rail (HSR) services opened in Spain and after a complete economic cycle with the longest-running European HSR network, this network can be treated as a territorial laboratory for testing the relationship between new transport infrastructures and population growth. This article compares the population evolution of Spanish cities with and without HSR services, considering the population of each city as a good indicator of long-term trends. Because the implications of transport investments have, for the most part, been studied only shortly before and after implementation, it is appropriate to re-evaluate these implications from a longer-term perspective. This article compares the population evolution of each HSR city with those of Spain overall, non-HSR municipalities, a random sample of non-HSR cities and similar non-HSR cities. This article also re-evaluates the implications for two small cities served by the first HSR line by means of analyses similar to those undertaken 10-15 years ago to evaluate both the long-term implications and those that are less permanent and have either changed or disappeared. These analyses show that population growth depends on each city's degree of transportation changes, the time elapsed, and the location and size of the city. This article concludes that in the longer term, projects and strategies will be more or less successful depending on their relation to transport. Finally, the article concludes that HSR and non-HSR population comparisons can provide useful general conclusions and that a comparison of HSR cities with similar non-HSR cities yields more specific conclusions.
Urban planning is a lengthy and settled process, the results of which usually emerge after several years or even decades. Therefore, for a proper urban design of cities, it is necessary to use parameters that are able to predict and gauge the potential long-term behaviour of urban development.In the tourist towns of the Mediterranean coast, long-term design is often at odds with the generation of business profits in the short term. This paper presents the results of this phenomenon for an interesting case of a Spanish Mediterranean coastal city created from scratch in the 1960s and turned into a tourist destination, which today is hypertrophied.La Manga del Mar Menor in the Region of Murcia every year reaches a population of more than 250,000 people during the summer, with only a few thousand in winter. This crowded environment with an asymmetric behaviour submits annual progressive impoverishment in its economic return. This questionable profitability is the result of a misguided urban development, and its results are analysed through the evolution of the land market and the resulting urbanization in the last 50 years using a GIS methodology.
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