Contributions for integrated management of rural road networks

Abstract

The road, understood as an infrastructure in a rural environment, demands, for its importance for the local economy and its potential impact in the landscape, a consensual and operating legal framework, with a territorial character, establishing helpful procedures in all its process. This is a process that includes from recognizing and inventorying the roads of a territory, to signaling and maintenance, including the decision process and the road work. That kind of legal framework doesn´t exist in Spain, resulting in incoordination between administrations, local population and economic sectors, in bad actions for landscape and rural environment, and in unnecessary economic costs. Here we propose principles, good intervening practices and methodologies whose purpose is to help establish valid procedures for rural roads management.