Integration Versus Fragmentation, the Role of Minor Rural Networks in Rural Cultural Landscapes. A Study-Case in Spain

Julio Plaza Tabasco and Héctor S. Martínez Sánchez-Mateos
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Julio Plaza Tabasco: Department of Geography and Land Planning, Faculty de Letras, Campus de Ciudad Real, University of Castilla-La Mancha, 13071 Ciudad Real, Spain
Héctor S. Martínez Sánchez-Mateos: Department of Geography and Land Planning, Faculty de Letras, Campus de Ciudad Real, University of Castilla-La Mancha, 13071 Ciudad Real, Spain

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 9, 1-20

Abstract: This work deals with the dichotomy between integration and fragmentation caused by artificial elements in the cultural landscapes, especially minor rural roads. In Europe, the rural matrix dominates the configuration of landscapes, and the agents of fragmentation can be analysed from different perspectives. For this purpose, the Land Parcel Information System, designed for the Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) is used as a data source to feed the indicators, allowing a high detail analysis, down to the parcel unit. It is applied to a case-study in Spain: the province of Ciudad Real. Here we find different landscape units with different rural and agrarian profiles to test the hypothesis. We use three indicators that allow us to explore the configuration of different cultural landscapes under the fragmentation perspective, using minor rural roads and other elements of the rural matrix that can only be observed at large scale. Then we calculate a composite indicator summarizing the fragmentation results of each unit. Results reveal a significative variability of fragmentation results regarding the land use and spatial patterns of the different cultural landscapes dominated by agrarian and rural factors, with a strong correspondence with the minor rural network underneath. Therefore, fragmentation can be interpreted as a dual process in cultural landscapes where the different land uses have different relations with the infrastructure network.

Keywords: minor rural networks; landscape fragmentation; agricultural landscapes; spatial indicators; Land Parcel Information System (LPIS) (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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