Rural Tourism: Crossroads Between Nature, Socio-Ecological Decoupling and Urban Sprawl

Abstract

The development of cultural tourism has turned traditional rural landscapes, characterized by their great natural and cultural values, into focus of tourism attraction, causing important changes in the socioeconomic structure of the regions containing them. The enhancement of this tourism highlights the need to design and implement a sustainable management that guarantees the maintenance and conservation of the landscape and the economic development of local populations. This study, localised in the Lozoya Valley (Guadarrama Mountains, Central Spain), analyses the socio-ecological situation of its municipalities and visitors in two different times. The analysis of its temporal evolution has allowed us to notice a marked socio-ecological decoupling characterized by urban sprawl, loss of traditional landuses and practices and the rurality of local society. At the same time, a decrease is detected in the rural landscape valuation by visitors, increasing their preferences for naturalness. The conducted study is a novel contribution applicable to the conservative management of the landscape and the development of sustainable tourism for nature and society.

Recreational and Nature-Based Tourism as a Cultural Ecosystem Service. Assessment and Mapping in a Rural-Urban Gradient of Central Spain

“…The respondents had to indicate which aspects of the landscape of those collected in the questionnaire (corresponding to the 16 RES selected; see Table 1) were most attractive to them, by marking the items that most closely matched their preferences. The structure and orientation of the questionnaires had been validated in previous works, with satisfactory results [22,39,[47][48][49].…”

Can We Foresee Landscape Interest? Maximum Entropy Applied to Social Media Photographs: A Case Study in Madrid

“…and includes 30 municipalities. The Lozoya Valley is a heterogeneous landscape with forest, settlements, water bodies such as reservoirs and a mosaic of traditional land uses containing pastures, meadows, hedgerows, ash groves and riparian forests, all of which are well preserved in most cases [26]. Over the centuries, the valley has come under different land uses and rural activities which have shaped the landscape and their traditional way of living along the centuries that have resulted in a region of great socio-ecological value.…”

“…However, recent studies have shown that increasing tourism and conflicting management legislation caused a rurality loss and an urban sprawl throughout the territory, transforming the ancient agropastoral landscape into a wilderness [28]. The comparison of surveys conducted with visitors in 2007 and 2017 shows that these changes have had an impact on their way of understanding the landscape of the Lozoya Valley: from valuing the cultural components more, to now valuing the "naturalistic" ones more [26]. Landscape to UNESCO by the Spanish National Plan of Cultural Landscape [27].…”

“…Finally, several studies have shown certain changes in the public's interest in the values of the Lozoya Valley, with a tendency to value its wild aspects more highly [26,28]. Hence, the greatest overlap in correlation occurs in natural systems and recreational activities.…”

“…Recently, the High Valley of the Lozoya River has been proposed as a model of Heritage Cultural Landscape to UNESCO by the Spanish National Plan of Cultural Landscape[27]. Because of this, the area is a touristic hotspot appreciated by visitors to the Madrid region[26]. However, recent studies have shown that increasing tourism and conflicting management legislation caused a rurality loss and an urban sprawl throughout the territory, transforming the ancient agropastoral landscape into a wilderness[28].…”