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El crecimiento de la economía española en los últimos 50 años es indiscutible, asociado a un modelo territorial de concentración, que propició la convergencia del Estado y de las comunidades autónomas con países y regiones de la Unión Europea, pero no una cohesión socioterritorial. Polarización y despoblación son su paradigma, una dualidad insostenible con efectos sobre la desigualdad, que debe ser abordada por nuevas políticas públicas.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a lot of discussion about keeping interpersonal distance to prevent the virus from spreading. To keep this interpersonal distance, authorities at different levels have taken measures to reduce people’s interactions, such as reducing capacities, curfews, pop-up cycle lanes, temporary pedestrianisation, and lockdowns. Many of these temporary measures have been perceived from a static view. Nevertheless, in a scenario of “new normality” or in the face of a possible new pandemic, the amount of data (big data) generated by different sources, such as sensors, in large cities has extraordinary potential to be used together with tactical urbanism for quick adaptation. The aim of this study was to gain insight into the aforementioned issues by analysing spatio-temporal patterns of pedestrian mobility and developing a variation of the pedestrian level of service measure, the pandemic pedestrian level of service (P-PLOS). This measure provides a dynamic view of pavement capacities according to the interpersonal distance recommendations during the pandemic. P-PLOS was tested in the city of Madrid based on the pedestrian counter data that was provided by the local government through its open data website. We found that the application of P-PLOS, together with street design, allows for knowing where and when it is necessary to take tactical urbanism measures in order to maintain or improve the level of service, as well as where it is necessary to take measures to reduce pedestrian flow.

Although widely, as well as recently explored, the concept of urban resilience still poses important issues in terms of its operationalization. For this reason, best practices that show how the resilience concept has been turned into planning practice are much needed. This article presents and discusses the case study of the Charca de Su&aacute, rez Nature Concerted Reserve, an urban wetland situated along the Andalusian coast (Spain), to contribute to filling the gap on the operationalization of urban resilience at the local planning level. In the Charca, an adaptive co-management and design approach has been successfully put into practice to foster local urban resilience. Starting from some recent key studies on planning and management policies for urban resilience, we propose a framework to read, understand and evaluate the Charca experience, and more generally, resilience-based projects. The analysis highlighted the following crucial key aspects for urban resilience in the Charca case study: A collaborative governance model, and the building of community-capitals. The Charca de Su&aacute, rez Nature Concerted Reserve can actually be acknowledged as an innovative planning practice, a source of inspiration for visions and experiments oriented to urban resilience.

The ecological value of some fine-scale landscape elements tends to be overlooked when they are found in highly human-influenced landscapes, such as peri-urban agricultural ones. These landscapes usually fall beyond the scope of the defined categories of landscape protection, and are thus mapped as areas of little or no ecological interest in the context of extensive analysis. In this paper, we present a method for assessing and visualizing the existing nodes in the field pattern of a peri-urban agricultural landscape. Nodes are identified from the field pattern and characterized according to the presence of relevant features and land uses from the viewpoint of their ecological functions. The method is applied in the Vega del Guadalfeo (south of Spain). Our results show an innovative map of the Vega which may be interpreted as its eco-structure; a model based on nodes to represent the ecological value of the peri-urban agricultural landscape.

Peri-urban deltas and vegas (irrigated plains) in Andalucia are especially complex landscapes combining agricultural, natural, urban and cultural heritage elements. Their agricultural and peri-urban characteristics entail both conflicts and opportunities as highlighted by the European Economic and Social Committee among other national and regional agreements. In this research we analyse the general context of peri-urban agriculture of vegas and deltas in Andalucia and their land-use transformations between 1956 and 2007, focusing on the network of medium-sized cities. In addition, we assess the consideration of vegas and deltas in spatial planning at the regional level and the way in which these plans have—or have not—faced the singularity of these spaces. The results reveal that peri-urban, agricultural deltas and vegas are changing their land use and in some cases even disappearing, with the meagre attention and the vague consideration that spatial planning pays to these areas.

Over the past decades, a large number of Spatial Planning Observatories (SPOs) have emerged in Europe in response to certain factors, such as the growing complexity of urban systems, the development of GIScience or European Union territorial policies. Previous studies have shown that SPOs have little effect when confronted with planning practice. It is believed that one of the main reasons is that the maps held by SPOs are not always focused on decision making; however, this argument has not yet been sufficiently proven. To address this problem and inspired by the doctrine of performance-based evaluation for spatial planning, we assess the performance for planning that a relevant number of European SPOs have according to their maps. The assessment takes into consideration two assumptions: (A) maps must be of continuing relevance to the situation as it evolves; (B) maps must help in defining operational decision situations for different focus groups (decision makers, planners, the public). We find that SPO maps could be excellent tools for planning, although an important number of improvements are still needed. In this sense, we discuss the potential role of SPO maps in addressing a collaborative dialogue between key planning agents in analysing urban dynamics, as well as in fostering new urban governance processes through the consideration of public participation.

The concept of agro-urban open space (AUOS) is presented as a multifunctional component within the context of how agricultural land uses contribute to the creation of open spaces. This contribution is represented through specific multifunctionality mapping, underlining the importance of spatial representation at a local, and even a plot, scale when dealing with agricultural multifunctionality. To this end we have undertaken a review of agricultural multifunctionality and open-space concepts to locate existing deficiencies as far as the required spatial dimension in planning is concerned. Issues such as permeability, access and other elements enhancing open spaces have been assessed to obtain partial maps and a final map showing the general values for AUOS at a plot level. The proposed method has been tested in a Mediterranean delta, the Vega del Guadalfeo, on the coast of the province of Granada in Spain. We found sugarcane and subtropical farming to be the main contributors to AUOS. The AUOS map presente...

In recent years, peri-urban agricultural landscapes are gradually receiving significant support in the context of five main fields. The first is from the European Landscape Convention (ELC), since its Article 2 refers not only to outstanding landscapes but also to everyday or even degraded landscapes. A second support is provided by the field of cultural heritage and cultural landscape, connecting the role of agricultural landscapes to patrimonial values. The understanding of landscape as heritage is quite recent and it is connected to the evolution of the heritage concept itself towards ideas such as the “heritagisation of territories and landscapes”. Within this frame, agricultural landscapes are actually being considered as an important part of European heritage. Multifunctionality of agriculture and landscape offers a third approach to strengthen agricultural landscapes based on their role of developing multiple functions and their corresponding economic, ecological and sociocultural services. From the field of protected areas, the advances in its conception and role is leading to an inspirational framework to be applied beyond the traditional boundaries of this body, giving new opportunities to link nature protection and landscape, including agricultural landscapes, which are recognised in some cases as important ecosystems and biodiversity foci. Finally, from a spatial planning viewpoint, different instruments could offer specific solutions to protect and promote vegas and deltas.

La Vega del Guadalfeo, dentro de la Provincia de Granada, es un patrimonio litoral mediterráneo bajo presión en las últimas décadas debido a, tanto al planificado como al no planificado, crecimiento urbano y turístico. El primer paso para superar la crisis de estos territorios es la visión renovadora del paisaje agrourbano, que implica un enfoque complejo. El paisaje agrourbano es un nuevo escenario o gradiente espacio-temporal evolucionado, donde los usos urbanos y agrarios entretejen nuevas funciones. Esta singular condición de la Vega del Guadalfeo puede ser orientada positivamente a través de instrumentos proactivos como la ecoestructura y la multifuncionalidad. La positiva interacción entre multifuncionalidad y ecoestructura sería el principal recurso para promover y diseñar una estrategia híbrida de planificación ambiental. Ese es el desafío para las décadas venideras, intentando equilibrar naturaleza y ciudad en los paisajes agrourbanos., The Guadalfeo's Vega belonging to the Granada's Province is a Mediterranean litoral heritage under pressure during the last decades due to the planned and unplanned growth of urban and touristic land uses. The first step to overcome the crisis of these territories is the renewal approach of the agrourban landscape which means a complex focus. The agrourban landscape is a new scenario or evolutionary spatio-temporal gradient where urban and agrarian land-uses interweaving new functions. This special condition of Guadalfeo's Vega may be addressed in a positive way by means of the pro-active tools of the ecostructure and the multifunctionality. The positive feed-back between multifuncionality and ecostructure would be the main resource to encourage and design a hybrid strategy for the environmental planning. That's the challenge for the decades ahead, balancing with success nature and city in the agrourban landscapes.