Lobbying, political competition, and local land supply: recent evidence from Spain

We analyze whether local land supply is influenced by the degree of political competition, and interpret the findings as being indicative of the influence wielded by land development lobbies. We use a new database including both political and land supply data for more than 2,000 Spanish municipalities for the period 2003-2007. In Spain, land use policies are largely a local responsibility with municipalities having periodically to pass compre- hensive land use plans. The main policy variable in these plans, and the one analyzed here, is the amount of land classified for potential development. We measure local political competition as the margin of victory of the incumbent government. We instrument this variable using the number of votes obtained by parties represented in local government when standing at the first national legislative elections following the re-establishment of democracy, and the number of votes they actually obtained regionally at the national legislative elections. The results indicate that stiffer political competition does indeed reduce the amount of new land designated for development. This effect is found to be most marked in suburbs, in towns with a high percent of commuters and homeowners, and in municipalities governed by the left.

Evolució i anàlisi del metabolisme ambiental del polígon industrial. El cas de Maó (Menorca)

El polígon industrial de Maó, POIMA, és un dels principals motors econòmics de l’illa de Menorca. La Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) en col·laboració amb l’Observatori Socioambiental de Menorca (OBSAM), ha fet un projecte d’anàlisi de l’evolució històrica i del metabolisme actual del polígon. L’estudi es centra en 5 vectors; usos del sòl, energètic, hídric, materials i mobilitat dels quals les dades han estat obtingudes a partir d’enquestes, entrevistes a les empreses i observacions directes semi-quantitatives. Com a resultat es presenten diverses propostes de millora per augmentar l’eficiència de POIMA, analitzant el potencial d’autosuficiència energètic i hídric, reduint l’impacte ambiental i reutilitzant els residus com a recursos entre empreses, sinèrgies.

Soil quality assessment through a multi-approach analysis in soils of abandoned terraced land in NE Spain

The abandonment of agricultural land in mountainous areas has been an outstanding problem along the last century and has captured the attention of scientists, technicians and administrations, for the dramatic consequences sometimes occurred due to soil instability, steep slopes, rainfall regimes and wildfires. Hidromorfological and pedological alterations causing exceptional floods and accelerated erosion processes has therefore been studied, identifying the cause in the loss of landscape heterogeneity. Through the disappearance of agricultural works and drainage maintenance, slope stability has resulted severely affected. The mechanization of agriculture has caused the displacement of vines, olives and corks trees cultivation in terraced areas along the Mediterranean catchment towards more economically suitable areas. On the one hand, land use and management changes have implicated sociological changes as well, transforming areas inhabited by agricultural communities into deserted areas where the colonization of disorganized spontaneous vegetation has buried a valuable rural patrimony. On the other hand, lacking of planning and management of the abandoned areas has produced badlands and infertile soils due to wildfire and high erosion rates strongly degrading the whole ecosystems. In other cases, after land abandonment a process of soil regeneration has been recorded. Investigations have been conducted in a part of NE Spain where extended areas of terraced soils previously cultivated have been abandoned in the last century. The selected environments were semi-abandoned vineyards, semi-abandoned olive groves, abandoned stands of cork trees, abandoned stands of pine trees, scrubland of Cistaceaea, scrubland of Ericaceaea, and pasture. The research work was focused on the study of most relevant physical, chemical and biological soil properties, as well as runoff and erosion under soils with different plant cover to establish the abandonment effect on soil quality, due to the peculiarity and vulnerability of these soils with a much reduced depth. The period of observation was carried out from autumn 2009 to autumn 2010. The sediment concentration of soil erosion under vines was recorded as 34.52 g/l while under pasture it was 4.66 g/l. In addition, the soil under vines showed the least amount of organic matter, which was 12 times lower than all other soil environments. The carbon dioxide (CO2) and total glomalin (TG) ratio to soil organic carbon (SOC) in this soil was 0.11 and 0.31 respectively. However, the soil under pasture contained a higher amount of organic matter and showed that the CO2 and TG ratio to SOC was 0.02 and 0.11 respectively indicating that the soil under pasture better preserves the soil carbon pool. A similar trend was found in the intermediate soils in the sequence of land use change and abandonment. Soil structural stability increased in the two soil fractions investigated (0.25-2.00 mm, 2.0-5.6 mm) especially in those soils that did not undergo periodical perturbations like wildfires. Soil quality indexes were obtained by using relevant physical and chemical soil parameters. Factor analysis carried out to study the relationship between all soil parameters allowed to related variables and environments and identify those areas that better contribute to soil quality towards others that may need more attention to avoid further degradation processes

Multi-Scale Integrated Analysis of Societal and Ecosystem Metabolism (MUSIASEM): an outline of rationale and theory

This paper presents an outline of rationale and theory of the MuSIASEM scheme (Multi-Scale Integrated Analysis of Societal and Ecosystem Metabolism). First, three points of the rationale behind our MuSIASEM scheme are discussed: (i) endosomatic and exosomatic metabolism in relation to Georgescu-Roegen’s flow-fund scheme; (2) the bioeconomic analogy of hypercycle and dissipative parts in ecosystems; (3) the dramatic reallocation of human time and land use patterns in various sectors of modern economy. Next, a flow-fund representation of the MUSIASEM scheme on three levels (the whole national level, the paid work sectors level, and the agricultural sector level) is illustrated to look at the structure of the human economy in relation to two primary factors: (i) human time - a fund; and (ii) exosomatic energy - a flow. The three levels representation uses extensive and intensive variables simultaneously. Key conceptual tools of the MuSIASEM scheme - mosaic effects and impredicative loop analysis - are explained using the three level flow-fund representation. Finally, we claim that the MuSIASEM scheme can be seen as a multi-purpose grammar useful to deal with sustainability issues.

Applications of the MuSIASEM approach to study changes in the metabolic pattern of Catalonia

This document presents an integrated analysis of the performance of Catalonia based on an analysis of how the energy consumption (measured at the societal level for the Catalan Society) is used within both the productive sectors of the economy and the household, to generate added value, jobs, and to guarantee a given level of material standard of living to the population. The trends found in Catalonia are compared to the trends of other European Countries to contextualize the performance of Catalonia with respect to other societies that have followed different paths of economic development. The first part of the document consists of the Multi-Scale Integrated Analysis of Societal and Ecosystem Metabolism (MuSIASEM) approach that has been used to provide this integrated analysis of Catalan Society across different scales (starting from an analysis of the specific sectors of the Catalan economy as an Autonomous Community and scaling up to an intra-regional (European Union 14) comparison) and across different dimensions of analyses of energy consumption coupled with added value generation. Within the scope of this study, we observe the various trajectories of changes in the metabolic pattern for Catalonia and the EU14 countries in the Paid Work Sectors composed of namely, the Agricultural Sector, the Productive Sector and the Services and Government Sector also in comparison with the changes in the household sector. The flow intensities of the exosomatic energy and the added value generated for each specific sector are defined per hour of human activity, thus characterized as exosomatic energy (MJ/hour) (or Exosomatic Metabolic Rate) and added value (€/hour) (Economic Labour Productivity) across multiple levels. Within the second part of the document, the possible usage of the MuSIASEM approach to land use analyses (using a multi-level matrix of categories of land use) has been conducted.

Condicions socioecològiques de la riera d'Arbúcies pel retorn de la llúdriga (Lutra lutra)

La llúdriga (Lutra lutra) va desaparèixer de la conca de la Tordera a causa de la pressió humana sobre ella i el seu hàbitat. Recentment les seves poblacions s’estan recuperant a las conques nord de Catalunya. En aquest context es presenta els resultats dels anàlisis dels requeriments socioecològics de la llúdriga en l’afluent del riu Tordera de la riera d’Arbúcies: qualitat del bosc de ribera, valoració de la contaminació de l’aigua i l’anàlisi de les poblacions d’ictiofauna, a més de l’estimació de l’espècie més abundant. L’evolució de l’ús i cobertes del sòl del sòl mostren que existeix una tendència augment en las masses forestals, zones urbanitzades i infraestructures; també una disminució del camps de cultiu, fruiters i vinyes. La qualitat del bosc de ribera es va valorar a partir del l’índex QBR, obtenint que la màxima qualitat es localitza en el tram alt, disminuint a mesura que s’apropa a la desembocadura al Tordera. La contaminació de l’aigua a estat valorada, per una banda analitzant la qualitat biològica a partir dels índexs IPS i BMWPC, obtenint que la qualitat de l’aigua disminueix a mesura que transcorre riu avall, segons l’IPS. Amb el BMWPC es troba que existeix una recuperació de la qualitat de l’aigua en l’últim tram. Per altra banda s’han analitzat el compostos químics que afecten a la llúdriga, obtenint que les concentracions d’aquest no són rellevants a l’aigua. S’ha analitzat l’estructura de la població d’ictiofauna present, trobant que el Barbus meridionalis és l’espècie més abundant en tots el trams, a més d’augmentar en captures a mesura que l’aigua s’apropa al aiguabarreig amb la Tordera. S’ha estimat la biomassa present d’aquesta espècie, concloent que es suficient per mantenir una població no gaire densa de llúdrigues, inferior a 0,15 individus per kilòmetre de riu.

The Accessibility City. When Transport Infrastructure Matters in Urban Spatial Structure

Suburbanization is changing the urban spatial structure and less monocentric metropolitan regions are becoming the new urban reality. Focused only on centers, most works have studied these spatial changes neglecting the role of transport infrastructure and its related location model, the “accessibility city”, in which employment and population concentrate in low-density settlements and close to transport infrastructure. For the case of Barcelona, we consider this location model and study the population spatial structure between 1991 and 2006. The results reveal a mix between polycentricity and the accessibility city, with movements away from the main centers, but close to the transport infrastructure.