Long‐term Human Impacts on the Coast of La Graciosa, Canary Islands

Abstract

The Global Change is affecting coastal areas and leading them to degradation. This is severe in sand dunes and sand plains, since they are very fragile ecosystems. The objective of this paper is to characterize the relationship between the historical land uses and the aeolian sedimentary dynamics in an arid coastal system, the island of La Graciosa (Canary Islands) since the second half of the 18th century. The methodology is based on the interpretation of historical documents, aerial photographs and oral testimonies to characterize the changes in the island, both in terms of land use and aeolian geomorphology. The results suggest the existence of six stages, during which the intensity of human pressure on the environment changed.

Island-Encapsulating Eolian Sedimentary Systems of the Canary and Cape Verde Archipelagos

“…Santana Cordero et al (2016a) show how traditional human activities remobilized the dunefield of La Graciosa. In contrast, the same authors explain how urban expansion of the city of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, has destroyed the dunefield of Guanarteme (Santana Cordero et al, 2006b).…”

Seasonal Patterns of Microbial Community Structure and Enzyme Activities in Coastal Saline Soils of Perennial Halophytes

“…Meanwhile, intertidal soils are highly productive and impart in multiple ecosystem functions, of which the most important are nutrient and organic matter cycling (Cong et al, 2014;Oliveira et al, 2010;Wang et al, 2007). However, coastal areas are subjected to continuous degradation by human activities (Cordero et al, 2016). Halophytic plant communities are one of the typical vegetation types in intertidal areas of coastal ecosystem.…”

Land-Use Changes in the Canary Archipelago Using the CORINE Data: A Retrospective Analysis

“…Thus, these Canary territorial specific features (present in most of the Islands) can be seen as a topographical obstacle which represents a natural barrier to the expected urban growth and also as a wall of protection for the fragmentation of the natural habitats. In fact, previous research using similar methods has studied this territory; Santana-Cordero et al [14,15], Pérez-Hernández et al [16], Acosta Yepes et al [42], Pérez Martínez et al [56], or Cruz [57], are just some examples. These specificities and particularities are in line with what occurs in Madeira Archipelago or in the more urbanized islands of Azores i.e., more pertinent in cities located in mountainous areas where the variation of altitude is considerable, and there are steep slopes [43][44][45][46][47][48][49].…”

“…Many authors have conducted territorial studies based on GIS Tools and CORINE data. As an example there is the study of Vizzari et al [12] where CORINE data were used and applied to study metropolitan areas in France; the work of Varga et al [13] have studied the effects of category aggregation on land change simulation based on CORINE data; the investigations of Santana-Cordero et al [14,15] or Pérez-Hernández et al [16] where GIS tools were used to analyze the land use on coastal dune systems on insular territories.…”