Environment in Spain Essay ⋆ Environment Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

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Spain is a European state located in the Iberian peninsula in southwestern Europe. Its territory includes the Balearic Islands, in the Mediterranean, and the Canary Islands, in the Atlantic ocean. The total land area is 194,208 square miles (503,000 square kilometers), and in 2006, the estimated population was 44.3 million with an increasing proportion of African, Asian, and Latin American immigrants.

Most of the country consists of a high plateau descending westward and surrounded by several mountain chains in the north, the east, and the south. Two large depressions occupied by the Ebro river in the north and by the Guadalquivir river in the south, and two peripheral high mountain chains (the Pyrenees in the north and the Baetic Sierras in the south, both with peaks above 9,843 feet [3,000 meters]) complete the physiography. The climate is Mediterranean with the exception of the northwestern and northern regions, where Atlantic conditions predominate. The central region features cold winters and hot summers. Droughts and floods are common features of the Spanish climate.

The environmental situation of Spain reflects its status as a developed economy with some distinctive traits related to its specialization in tourism and the relatively important role of intensive agriculture.

Both sectors tend to concentrate along the Mediterranean coast (and tourism also in the islands) and exacerbate land and water management problems. Thus tourism appears to be the driving force of one of the highest rates of urbanization in Europe. In 2004, more new homes were built in Spain than in Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom combined. In the Costa del Sol (Andalusia) alone, more than a half million homes and dozens of golf courses are planned for the near future. In 2005, the European Union (EU) issued a warning to the regional government of Valencia in response to that body’s fostering urban development with little environmental controls, and in the same year, the government of Murcia in the southeast unclassified protected land for the construction of new urban and tourist resorts.

Water management to meet growing demands remains one of the more pressing problems faced by the country. About three-quarters of the water consumed is used for agriculture, for crops of both high value (e.g., irrigated fruit and vegetable orchards of the Mediterranean area and the Canary Islands) and low (maize and fodder crops in the central regions), but urban and tourist demand is rising fast, especially along the Mediterranean coast and in the islands. To meet growing water demand, in 2001 a New National Water Plan was launched by the conservative government. The main feature of this plan was a large water transfer from the Ebro river to the Barcelona region, and, more importantly, to Valencia, Murcia, and Almeria in the east and south to meet the growing requirements of agriculture and tourism. Due to a large social opposition in the Ebro basin, the transfer was halted by the socialist government in 2004 and water was to be obtained instead from desalinization plants.

Agricultural abandonment constitutes another cause of concern for the Spanish environment. More than 20 percent of agricultural land has been lost since the 1980s, exacerbating problems such as soil erosion, desertification, and forest fires. Regarding the latter, between 1995 and 2005, about 197,684 acres (80,000 hectares) burned annually. Fires in 2005 were especially tragic, with 264,402 acres (107,000 hectares) affected and 13 deaths. Because of its varied landscapes, Spain has one of the highest biodiversity rates in Europe. Protected areas (571 in 2003) represent approximately 10 percent national parks, which has been in force since 1918. Moreover, there are 20 Biosphere Reserves, which make up more than 2.4 million acres (one million hectares).

Recent urban and industrial growth has produced a substantial deterioration in urban air quality. More than 80 Spanish cities (12 million people) registered in 2005 concentrations of pollutants such as particulates, nitrogen dioxides, and ozone above EU standards, and carbon dioxide emissions have grown 53 percent since 1990 (according to the Kyoto Protocol, Spain was allowed to increase its emissions by 15 percent in 2008). Although most of its energy comes from natural gas, coal, and nuclear power plants, Spain has embarked on an ambitious program of renewable energies, especially wind: In 2005, the country ranked second in the world, after Germany, in installed capacity (10,000 megawatts or 20 percent of the world total).

Bibliography:

Central Intelligence Agency, “Spain,” The World Factbook, www.cia.gov;
United Nations Development Programme, “Human Development Report: Spain,” hdr.undp.org