Land-Use Changes in Insular Urban Territories: A Retrospective Analysis from 1990 to 2018. The Case of Madeira Island—Ribeira Brava

Sérgio Lousada (), José Cabezas, Rui Alexandre Castanho and José Manuel Naranjo Gómez
Additional contact information
Sérgio Lousada: Department of Civil Engineering and Geology (DECG), Faculty of Exact Sciences and Engineering (FCEE), University of Madeira (UMa), 9000-082 Funchal, Portugal
José Cabezas: VALORIZA-Research Centre for Endogenous Resource Valorization, Polytechnic Institute of Portalegre (IPP), 7300 Portalegre, Portugal
Rui Alexandre Castanho: CITUR-Madeira-Research Centre for Tourism Development and Innovation, 9000-082 Funchal, Portugal
José Manuel Naranjo Gómez: CITUR-Madeira-Research Centre for Tourism Development and Innovation, 9000-082 Funchal, Portugal

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 24, 1-20

Abstract: As the main island of the Madeira Archipelago, Madeira is faced with a clear demand for more precise and specific planning policies, in order to respond to regional requests. Bearing in mind the urgency of this issue linked to the concept of sustainability, planning strategies must be based on and strengthened by several studies, with the most varied themes, as a way of incisively understanding the problem at hand. Based on tools such as GIS (geographic information systems), this study allows the analysis of variations and patterns of land use and occupancy in the municipality of Ribeira Brava, located on Madeira Island. In a comprehensive manner, the study allows us to highlight the stagnation of the urban fabric of the region and, on the other hand, the change in the dynamics of agricultural cultivation present in the county. In addition, this study highlights the change in the predominant native vegetation in the municipality between the years 1990 and 2018. It is still necessary to emphasize the worrying scenario with the loss of native vegetation due to human activity, which requires more emphatic monitoring by regional government actors to protect, preserve and conserve these landscapes, environments and ecosystems.

Keywords: CORINE Land Cover (CLC); geographic information systems (GIS); land use and occupancy; planning and territorial management; territorial planning (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/24/16839/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/24/16839/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:24:p:16839-:d:1004307

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().