Groundwater is an essential resource for humans concerning freshwater supply; therefore, preserving and protecting its quality is necessary. Risk assessment, based on hazard, intrinsic vulnerability information and mapping, may be considered as a key aspect of sustainable groundwater management. An approach has been made by combining the Nitrogen Input Hazard Index and the hydrogeological parameters considered in a modified DRASTIC method. A three-level classification has been used to determine the degree of risk, and the thresholds have been established following measurable criteria related to the potential nitrate concentration in groundwater. The second part of the study focused on estimating the socioeconomic impact of groundwater pollution by relating the degree of risk and social vulnerability to groundwater pollution. The method has been tested in the Gallocanta Groundwater Body (Spain). As a result, a risk map and an impact map are provided. The risk map shows that 67% of the study area can be classified as moderate and high-risk areas, corresponding to high hazard sources located in moderate and high vulnerability zones, whereas the impact of groundwater pollution is classified as moderate in the whole groundwater body. The proposed analysis allows comparison between aquifers in different areas and the results required by water authorities to implement control and mitigation measures.

Nitrate pollution from agricultural sources is one of the biggest issues facing groundwater management in the European Union (EU). During the last three decades, tens of nitrate vulnerable zones (NVZ) have been designated across the EU, aiming to make the problem more manageable. The Gallocanta Groundwater Body in NE Spain was declared as an NVZ in 1997, and after more than 20 years, significant improvements in water quality were expected to be observed. In the present study, the spatiotemporal trend of nitrate concentration within the Gallocanta NVZ in the last 38 years was assessed, and the effectiveness of the NVZ implementation was tested. Data from the official Ebro Basin Confederation monitoring network from 1980 to 2018 were used, and the results showed an increasing but fluctuating trend in nitrate concentration since 1980. Although a slight improvement was detected after the NVZ designation in 1997, the low rate of improvement would take decades to reach desirable levels in most of the area. The lack of update and control of action programmes, the inappropriate NVZ delimitation, and the influence of natural factors seem to be the reasons for the failure of the nitrate reduction measures. Currently, nitrate pollution and groundwater management are a matter of concern for the EU, so given the recurring problems in water supply in the area and the nonfulfillment of the goal of good quality status, more demanding measures are needed to be implemented in the short term. Keywords Contamination . Endorreism . Groundwater management . Nitrate . Spain Dubrovsky Q1 et al. 2010). Whereas animal farming and indus-36 trial or urban discharges are relatively easy to mitigate, since 37 they usually originate from point sources, NO 3 − leaching from 38 agricultural sources is considered a nonpoint source (Sutton 39 et al. 2011) and is harder to control and prevent. NO 3 − arising 40 from diffuse agricultural sources has been recognized as one 41 of the main causes of groundwater degradation (Sutton et al. 42 2011; Wick et al. 2012; Zhang et al. 2019). 43 The higher NO 3 − requirements of crops and the rising sur-44 face area of cultivated land, along with pressure to produce 45 food at affordable prices and the ease of application of nitro-46 gen fertilizers, have led to an increase in NO 3 − use during the 47 last several decades (DiQ2

The present research analyses the epidemiological bases, the methodology approach and the utility of the Geo-Covid Cartographic Platform to face COVID-19 transmission at an intra-urban scale.  Geo-Covid is based on the study of the main drawbacks and limitations of the current risk maps, and the proposed hazard mapping methodology is presented as an alternative approach with a high spatial-temporal accuracy. It is based on 1) the map of neighborhood active focuses of contagion, which are classified according to several hazard indexes, 2)  the map of highly-transited areas by potential asymptomatic positives cases and 3) the map of Points of Maximum Risk of contagion. In order to test the effectiveness of the proposed methodology for mapping COVID-19 hazard and risk, it has been applied to Málaga City (Spain) during several stages of the epidemic in the city (2020 and 2021). The neighborhood focus of contagion is proposed as the basic spatial unit for the epidemiological diagnosis and the implementation of mitigation and control measures. After the analysis, it has been concluded that the proposed methodology, and thus, the maps included in the Geo-Covid Cartographic Platform allow a realistic and rigorous analysis of the spatial distribution of the epidemic in real-time.

The objectives of this paper are (a) to incorporate vegetation cover into quantitative techniques for identifying and classifying urban landscape types, (b) to implement a methodology to analyse the urban landscape units of three zones in the Mediterranean coastal area and (c) to design a methodology that could be extrapolated to other urban spaces with a similar type and spatial scale. To achieve the objectives, the urban landscape units are characterized in three Mediterranean coastal municipalities in the south of Spain, in the province of Málaga: Benalmádena, Marbella and Manilva. The characterization is based on some of the most representative variables of the urban morphology, such as construction density, road density and building height, also incorporating the presence of vegetation cover, both arboreal and herbaceous and shrub. Data were obtained from the Spanish Cadastral (urban morphology variables) and through remote sensing techniques (vegetation), spatial analysis tools and multivariate analysis were implemented to obtain the characterization and spatial delimitation of the urban typologies. As a result, six clusters are recognized with predominant urban landscape typologies. The proposed procedure is a useful tool to segment the city following landscape criteria, as well as to assess the changes experienced in urban spaces.

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