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During the second half of the 20th century, many Spanish Mediterranean areas have undergone important land use changes as a result of socioeconomic development (industrialization, urbanization, intensification of agriculture and livestock, dry crops abandonment). This paper describes, maps and quantifies the main transformations that have occurred in the middle Túria basin, an example of a medium Mediterranean mountain situated in the transition between the inner highlands and the coastal plain affected by the expansion of the Valencia metropolitan area. Photo-interpretation techniques and the analysis of series of the NDVI vegetation index obtained from satellite images have been used. The dynamic cartography of land use changes between 1956 to 2010 has let us identify the type and magnitude of the changes in order to be able to establish in the future the environmental implications in the hydrological response of the basin. Changes have been observed in 60 % of the basin, mainly the expansion in forest cover (scrub and forest) on the mountain areas and changes from dry to irrigated crops (citrus), showing a greening landscape which is in agreement with the process observed in other areas of Spain by other authors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]