Chapter 6 DRIVING FORCES OF LAND-USE CHANGE A preliminary assessment of the human-mediated influences Juan Peña 1 , Andreu Bonet 1 , Juan Bellot 1 , Juan Rafael Sánchez 1 , Denise Eisenhuth 1 , Stephen Hallett 2 and Antonio Aledo 3 1 Departamento de Ecología, Universidad de Alicante, Spain; 2 National Soil Resources Institute, Cranfield University at Silsoe, U K; 3 Departamento de Sociología y Teoría de la Educación, Universidad de Alicante, Spain Abstract: The aim of this chapter is to examine the processes of change in land cover and land use over the last 44 years, at regional scale, in a traditional, rural south-eastern Spanish catchment. Land use has changed dramatically over recent decades throughout the Mediterranean. Much of this change has been driven by shifts in agricultural and socioeconomic policy. Analysis of aerial photography for the Marina Baixa catchment has revealed a significant decline in traditional agriculture and conversion to forestry or intensive croplands. The consequences of economic globalisation are reflected here in a shift from traditional to intensive agriculture and in human migration from rural to urban areas, as well as in the development of tourism. Land-use changes are correlated with socioeconomic structural forces in order to demonstrate how these changes affect the basic resources of the area and to provide a clearer understanding of possible future trends. Key words: Landscape change; land-use and land-cover change; driving forces; agricultural abandonment; agricultural intensification; urbanisation. 1. INTRODUCTION Land-cover (the biophysical attributes of the earth’s surface) and land- use change (human purpose or intent as applied to these attributes) play an important role in current global change phenomena (Turner et al., 1990; Vitousek, 1992). Changes in landscape structure represent some of the most IN A CULTURAL LANDSCAPE OF SPAIN E. Koomen et al. (eds.), Modelling Land-Use Change, 97–115. © 2007 Springer.