Environmental issues and sustainability: risks, land-use planning and climate change
Domain 9 converts physical and human processes into risk, and risk into planning decisions - where physical geography, population and law meet.
Hazards and risk
- Risk = hazard × exposure × vulnerability: a flood on an empty floodplain is a hazard, not a disaster.
- Regional hazards: river floods along the Duero corridor and the lower Pisuerga, Esla and Órbigo; drought; forest fires, with Sierra de la Culebra (Zamora, 2022) as the reference case; soil erosion on cultivated slopes; hail and late frost on vines; landslides in mountain valleys.
- Desertification pressure comes from aridity, salinisation of irrigated soils and loss of organic matter.
Climate change
- Spain has warmed by about 1.5 °C since the 1960s; projections for 2100 give a further 2–4 °C, more heatwaves, fewer but more intense rain days, a shrinking snowpack and lower Duero flows, of the order of 10–25 % under intermediate scenarios.
- Consequences: a longer fire season, higher irrigation demand, lower hydroelectric output, shifts in crop suitability and in the range of Mediterranean species.
Planning and sustainability
- Instruments: Ley 5/1999 de Urbanismo de Castilla y León, Directrices de Ordenación del Territorio, PGOU; flood mapping through the SNCZI and the Cartografía de Zonas Inundables; environmental impact assessment for projects and strategic environmental assessment for plans.
- Protection: Red Natura 2000 and other protected spaces; conflicts over renewable siting (wind in Burgos, Palencia and Soria; solar); circular economy; depopulation treated as a sustainability problem in its own right.
Worked example
Two hydrographs for the same storm: A peaks at 3 hours and 250 m³/s, B at 12 hours and 90 m³/s. A's short lag and high peak indicate an impermeable or urbanised, steep catchment with high flood risk; B's damped response indicates forest cover, permeable soils and upstream storage. Planning answer: keep A's floodplain free of housing and restore B-type cover upstream as natural retention.
Traps
- Using hazard and risk as synonyms.
- Assuming climate change means uniformly less rain, when dry days increase but intensity per event also rises.
- Confusing environmental impact assessment with strategic environmental assessment.
- Believing Natura 2000 forbids all human use: it is not a strict reserve.
- Explaining losses from hazard alone, ignoring exposure and vulnerability.