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Chile's central-south region has experienced significant land use changes in the past fifty years, affecting native forests, agriculture, and urbanization. This article examines these changes and assesses their impact on native forest cover and agricultural land. Agricultural data for Chile (1980–2020) were obtained from public Chilean institutions (INE and ODEPA). Data on land use changes in central and south Chile (1975–2018), analysed from satellite images, were obtained from indexed papers. Urban area expansion in Chile between 1993 and 2020 was examined using publicly available data from MINVIU, Chile. Additionally, photovoltaic park data was sourced from SEA, Chile. Field crop coverage, primarily in central and southern Chile, decreased from 1,080,000 ha in 1980 to 667,000 ha in 2020, with notable decreases observed in cereal and legume crops. Conversely, the coverage of export-oriented orchards and vineyards increased from 194,947 ha to 492,587 ha. Forest plantations expanded significantly, ranging from 18% per decade in northern central Chile to 246% in the Maule and Biobío regions. This was accompanied by a 12.7–27.0% reduction per 10 years in native forest. Urban areas have experienced significant growth of 91% in the last 27 years, concentrated in the Mediterranean climate region. Solar photovoltaic parks have begun to increasingly replace thorn scrub (Espinal) and agricultural land, mirroring transformations seen in other Mediterranean nations like Spain and Portugal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rural–urban gradients offer an appropriate ecological framework for understanding relevant social issues to sustainability and policy planning. We tested the hypothesis that human population growth rate at a local scale is indirectly driven by spatial and rurality gradients, which can be applied to cultural landscapes in Mediterranean Europe. The whole of local administrative/spatial units of Spain—8125 municipalities—, previously classified into five categories along a rural–urban gradient, was used as a case study. Several geospatial patterns and associations among local average per capita population growth rate, population mean age, road accessibility, and other environmental and landscape variables linked to rurality gradients were identified by means of geographic information system (GIS) and multivariate statistics. Regression analysis was used to assess the relationship between population size changes through time and other demographic and territorial variables. Population growth rate was associated with road accessibility and rurality gradient, supporting the established hypothesis. Short-term population growth or decline was directly driven by population mean age. A visual hypothesized model of local population growth rate based on empirical evidence is presented. The results are useful for decision-makers, from local land management interventions to developing strategies and policies to address the demographic challenge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]