Article
Beyond “emptied Spain”: climate change, depopulation, and globalisation in rural areas
-
1Climate change, depopulation, and the globalisation of agricultural trade are drivers of vulnerability, understood as the degree to which an area is susceptible to and is unable to cope with adverse socio-economic and environmental effects.
-
2The distribution of vulnerability across rural areas in Spain is not homogeneous. The most vulnerable counties are located in the “vulnerability belt”, which covers Castilla y León (77% of whose counties are vulnerable), Navarra (43%), and Castilla-La Mancha (34%).
-
3A detailed look at how manifestations of climate change, depopulation, and globalisation combine with each other reveals four groups of territories: an emptied and economically marginalised Spain; an economically coping but drying Spain; an eroding Spain, and an exporting Spain.
-
4Rural development should tackle the vulnerability of rural municipalities in its multiple social and intergral environmental manifestations.