La degradación medioambiental de la cuenca mediterránea: conservación vs. gestión de unos recursos y de un patrimonio compartido

Abstract

The Mediterranean climate, the land complexity and the history of land uses, allows us to consider the different landscapes as an adaptation to a fluctuating environment, which is in many instances markedly unpredictable. We emphasize the need to include agroecosystems and valuable landscapes in land management schemes derived from the application of conservation policies. In the last decades the Mediterranean region has been subjected to significant socioeconomic transformations; which has generated demographic changes, land use changes, and ensuing changes in water uses and demand. Recent transformations have gradually differentiated environmental units of reference (interior, intermediate and coastal); the current development model is ecologically unsustainable.