Land use and land cover on the Macaronesian islands of Portugal and Spain: new methods for quantifying and visualizing information from spatial patterns
The aim of this research is to propose novel methods for quantifying and visualizing geographical information, in order to aid the spatial planning decision-making process when addressing land use and land cover patterns. In doing so, several modeling and geographic visualization methods are developed and demonstrated by using the Macaronesian islands of Portugal and Spain as study areas. Macaronesia is a biogeographical region consisting of several archipelagos in the Atlantic Ocean belonging to three countries: Portugal, Spain, and Cape Verde. This research encompasses three archipelagos: the Azores, Madeira, and the Canary Islands. From these three archipelagos, the four most densely populated islands were further selected for the land use and land cover assessments: Sao Miguel, Madeira, Tenerife, and Gran Canaria. A common feature of the Macaronesian islands is that, ever since European colonization in the fifteenth century, up until the mid-twentieth century, anthropogenic land change was predominately attributable to agricultural activities consuming forests and natural areas. In the mid-twentieth century, owing to profound social and economic changes, the tertiary sector started its rise in becoming the main economic sector. Because the secondary sector in this region has always been minor, this substantial shift to the tertiary sector would dictate a progressive abandonment of the primary sector. Hence, agricultural areas started to recede. As a result, the last decades of the twentieth century were marked by a significant shift in land use dynamics. Agricultural activities ceased to be the main driving force of land change and were replaced by a rampant increase of the artificial surfaces, mainly on the southern coastal areas, where tourism-related and real estate pressure constitute a major impact on the landscape. A direct consequence of this pressure was the drastic transformation across the islands’ leeward coastal landscapes...