Search Results (44)

Currently, the role of a university in promoting the development of rural areas has been emphasized. However, an increase in academic training can lead to a growth in rural migration due to the lack of job opportunities for university graduates. Given the scarcity of studies on the impact of higher education institutions in areas at risk of depopulation, a research study has been conducted with university students residing in Castilla y León (Spain) in order to understand their insights on the benefits that university education can bring to rural areas, as well as to comprehend the reasons that would motivate the migration of university students or even the interest of institutions in addressing the issue of depopulation. The results achieved suggest that an increase in education could help slow down this process, with the proximity of the university being a decisive factor for population settlement. Additionally, while the shortage of job opportunities would be the main cause of migration, there would also be other factors contributing to depopulation, such as lack of leisure or services, despite a will to stay. Finally, the survey respondents expressed skepticism about the institutions’ interest in addressing this problem. Full article

The preservation of historic irrigation infrastructure is vital for sustainable water management, especially in regions grappling with rural depopulation, land degradation, and wildfire risk. This study presents a rehabilitation framework for the Acequia del Diablo (Teruel, Spain), a centuries-old gravity-fed canal that supported 60 hectares of agriculture and contributed to ecological connectivity. Its deterioration—following landslides in 1992 and water source loss in 2020—has led to land abandonment, biodiversity decline, and increased wildfire vulnerability. The proposed solution, centered on restoring the original intake at the Azud de Fonseca and stabilizing damaged sections, reestablishes water autonomy and integrates heritage conservation into water governance. A multi-criteria analysis identified this gravity-based alternative as the most technically, economically, and environmentally viable. Drawing from precedents in the literature, the conservation and rehabilitation of historical irrigation systems play a crucial role in sustainable water management in rural areas; this initiative offers a replicable model for other Mediterranean and semi-arid areas. However, challenges include engineering complexity in unstable terrain, administrative delays, and long-term maintenance. Despite these, this intervention enhances rural resilience, wildfire prevention, and biodiversity, while aligning with circular economy principles and European Green Deal objectives. Full article

Urban mass tourism and rural depopulation increasingly threaten heritage sites worldwide, leading to socio-economic and environmental challenges. This study adopts a holistic approach to sustainable tourism planning by examining 84 cultural and natural heritage sites in and around Safranbolu and Amasra, two cities in Türkiye that are listed on the UNESCO World Heritage List and the Tentative List. Inspired by historical travelers’ itineraries, it proposes an eco-cultural tourism route to create a resilient heritage network. A participatory methodology integrates charettes within Erasmus+ workshops, crowdsourcing, various analysis methods while engaging stakeholders, and AI-powered clustering for route determination. The study follows a four-stage framework: (1) data collection via collaborative GIS, (2) eco-cultural route development, (3) stakeholder participation for inclusivity and viability, and (4) assessments and recommendations. Results highlight the strong potential of heritage assets for sustainable tourism while identifying key conservation risks. Interviews and site analysis underscore critical challenges, including the absence of integrated site management strategies, insufficient capacity-building initiatives, and ineffective participatory mechanisms. Moreover, integrating GIS-based crowdsourcing, machine learning clustering, and multi-criteria decision-making can be an effective planning support system. In conclusion, this study enhances the sustainability of heritage and tourism by strengthening participatory eco-cultural development and mitigating mass tourism and abandonment’s negative impacts on the heritage sites. Full article

South Korea faces serious challenges regarding population imbalance and sustainability due to low birth rates and the aging population. This study utilizes future population projection scenarios provided by Statistics Korea to estimate population distributions at both regional and grid levels. The analysis applies an urban growth model for administrative divisions and a modified gravity model for grid-level estimations. The modified gravity model enhances the prediction accuracy by effectively accounting for multi-centered urban structures and excluding non-residential areas such as mountains, rivers, and parks. Additionally, a novel spatial weight matrix considering train station connectivity is introduced. The results show that incorporating public transportation infrastructure around cities slows the rate of population decline, highlighting its mitigating effects on regional extinction. The study predicts that over 30 cities will face depopulation risks by 2072, while population concentration in the Seoul metropolitan area will persist. The grid-level analysis reveals detailed patterns of population imbalance within regions, particularly identifying uninhabited areas and their spatial distribution. These findings carry significant implications for infrastructure planning and regional development. By employing innovative modeling approaches and high-resolution projections, this study provides policymakers with valuable insights into South Korea’s demographic challenges and potential advances in sustainable urban and regional development. Full article

The population density of susceptible animals, including domestic pigs and wild boar, is a major risk factor for the emergence of African Swine Fever outbreaks. The ASF foci in wild boar in Russia is sustained by the presence of the virus in the environment, which is primarily determined by the number of infected carcasses found. This study investigates the risk factors related to the occurrence of ASF virus among wild boar, identified through passive monitoring and depopulation control measures, by employing generalized logistic regression models and random forest analysis. The random forest regression outperformed logistic regression coefficient of determination (R² = 0.98 and R² = 0.88) according to the statistical modeling of ASF using different regression types. When comparing regression models, the results showed that wild boar population density, the number of hunting farms, the presence of infected carcasses, and ASF outbreaks among domestic pigs were the main predictors of epidemic in wild boar. The application of a multiple logistic regression model confirmed the significance of the identified risk factors, determining of the probability of ASF outbreaks among wild boar. Given the prolonged affected area across most regions of Russia, the random forest model proved to be the most effective and interpretable based on quality indicator assessments. By highlighting the important role of geographical conditions, identifying these risk factors enhances our understanding of ASF dynamics in specific regions and offers valuable information for decision-makers in developing targeted control strategies against this disease. Full article

Regulation (EU) 2016/429 introduces comprehensive guidelines for managing transmissible animal diseases, including zoonoses. The subsequent Commission Implementing Regulation 2018/1882 categorizes these diseases into five groups, each with specific responses, ranging from mandatory eradication to optional eradication or surveillance. Key regulatory priorities include enhanced animal traceability, biosecurity, wildlife pathogen control, sustainable farming practices, and minimizing the impact of diseases on public health, animal health, and the environment. These objectives align with the European Green Deal, the Farm to Fork Strategy, the One Health approach, and the ongoing revaluation of European Inner Areas. They, including the Molise Region in Italy, are often remote, face service accessibility challenges, and suffer from depopulation and farm abandonment. Nonetheless, they hold significant potential for agropastoral and agri-food activities that can support tourism, the commercialization of local products, and recreational pursuits. Implementing optional programmes for animal diseases and zoonoses not subject to mandatory eradication could help the farms of these areas to mitigate productivity losses due to diseases like Infectious Bovine Rhinotracheitis and Paratuberculosis. The latter is a suspected zoonosis potentially linked to Crohn’s disease in humans. Optional programmes could enhance economic returns, counteract depopulation, support animal welfare and pasture conservation, and reduce the risk of exposure to zoonotic diseases for residents and tourists attracted by the ecological appeal of these areas. Full article

Socioeconomic factors are increasingly considered in the study of forest fires. However, there is a gap in the literature on the possible relationship between basic services and infrastructures such as small rural schools and forest fires. Population decline in rural areas is leading to an increase in forest fire risk and social vulnerability to forest fires due to the abandonment of traditional agroforestry practices and the expansion of unmanaged forest canopy. In addition, rural schools are supposed to make rural municipalities livable and promote the people’s sense of community. In parallel, there is controversy over the closure of small local schools in sparsely populated rural areas worldwide. Our study identified that the forest area burned in the province of Avila (Central Spain), during the period 1996 to 2023, was higher in municipalities without rural primary schools. The presence of rural schools was as statistically significant as the influence of orographic variations of the territory, the number of incipient fires, and the reduction of population density during the same period. Our work contributes to highlighting the potential links between the decline of essential services in rural areas and the increase in forest fire risk, to urge policymakers to take a collaborative and holistic view. Full article

The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is a European Union (EU) policy aimed at supporting farmers, guaranteeing food security, and promoting sustainable rural development, which has undergone numerous reforms to adapt to the needs of the agricultural sector and society in general. The main objective of this work is to statistically analyse CAP aid in southwest Spain, specifically in Extremadura, a region characterised by areas at risk of depopulation and deep rural areas, during the last two periods of European aid (2007–2013 and 2014–2020). In this study, by means of principal component analysis (PCA), agricultural, economic, and demographic variables were interrelated, together with geographic information systems (GIS), to evaluate their impact on the development of the regional agricultural sector. This methodology will help to identify areas with improvements in their territorial structures and can therefore serve as a basis for their application in other European territories. Through the analysis, we identified areas where the interrelation of the variables showed improvements in their demographic, social, and economic structures, with the municipalities of populations over 10,000 inhabitants in Extremadura being the ones that compose the territorial substructure A. Therefore, this work shows how European agricultural aid can disproportionately favour the most dynamic territories and leave the less developed regions at a disadvantage. Full article

This research investigates the effects of land use/land cover (LULC) and demographical changes on runoff and erosion processes in the watersheds of border highlands in Serbia. It provides an interdisciplinary approach, linking demography (human geography) with physical geography (hydrology and geomorphology). (A) A predominant decrease in curve number (CN), a key hydrological indicator, is recorded in more than 20 watersheds in Eastern and Southeastern Serbia, largely due to continuous depopulation and abandonment of arable land over recent decades. In contrast, minor CN changes are dominant in over 10 watersheds in Western and Southwestern Serbia. (B) Through cluster analysis, four regions are spatially delineated by changes in four key indicators: runoff, soil erosion, agricultural land use, and rural population. Soil erosion change is correlated with the deagrarianisation and depopulation processes at a significance of p < 0.0001 with r = 0.580 and r = 0.629, respectively. The border watersheds are being studied for the first time using a complex approach that analyses the relationships between changes in demography, land use, surface runoff, and soil erosion. The study results contribute to a better understanding of sustainable land management and risk management in the hilly and mountainous border regions, which are particularly vulnerable to torrential flooding and soil erosion. Full article

Due to aging and depopulation, cities in Japan struggle to maintain their municipal waste collection services. These challenges were exacerbated by the pandemic. To overcome these challenges, a prototype of collective and contactless waste collection technology has been developed. However, its acceptance by society is unknown. In this study, we surveyed Japanese people’s preferences regarding household waste disposal. The results showed that older adults (older than 60) are willing to walk longer (more than 2 min) to carry their waste to the disposal site than younger adults. They are also less concerned about the risk of disease infection from touching other people’s garbage than younger respondents (at a 0.24 count ratio). Other significant findings are that people who live alone prefer the temporary disposal site to be placed more than one minute away from their house (at a 0.19 count ratio). People living alone also produce less plastic and packaging waste than larger households. With more Japanese older adults living alone because of the scarcity of older-adult care facilities, we proposed two waste collection strategies that can allow for the implementation of more collective and automatized contactless waste pickup technology. Each design poses different challenges, such as the need for residents’ cooperation and a higher energy supply. However, they also open new opportunities, such as encouraging active aging and using renewable energy. Full article

The intensity with which the phenomenon of depopulation has affected rural municipalities in Spain between 1950 and 2022 has led to a loss in the intergenerational transmission of traditional knowledge, values and customs. Sociocultural loss entails associated physical risks: the abandonment, demolition, and loss of vernacular architecture. This research analyzes the evolution of this type of architecture in a period of acute depopulation and its current state of conservation. A total of 180 case studies in the region of Comunidad Valenciana are analyzed through four factors affecting the physical vulnerability of dwellings: year of construction, state of conservation, type of use, and a combination of all three. Data management software is used to combine all the information and produce the results in a tabular and graphical format, while the Geographic Information System is used to draw up risk maps showing the results. These results are then divided into analysis groups created according to the degree of depopulation observed in the years mentioned. This made it possible to identify the relationship between depopulation and the conservation of vernacular architecture, showing the risk level for each case study, and thus creating an analysis methodology applicable in other territories affected by depopulation at a national and international level. Full article

Archaeological sites constitute one of the main tourist attractions in the heritage offerings of most populations. Their ability to convey the ways of life and construction techniques of past societies through physical remains positions them as a culturally significant alternative for visitors. However, their physical conservation, essential for efficiently ensuring information with precision, poses a serious challenge for the various professionals involved, as numerous social and anthropic risks threaten long-term preservation for the enjoyment of future generations. Of all traditional building materials, earth is undoubtedly one of the most fragile and sensitive to loss in the absence of the original protection systems, so that a precise assessment of its threats is essential to minimizing the destruction of these non-renewable assets. The objective of this study is to evaluate the most determining human risk factors within the territorial scope of the Iberian Peninsula, including aspects such as its musealization, suitable interpretation, visit planning, agricultural land use, vandalism and rural depopulation. This is achieved through a literature review and on-site data collection from 85 archaeological sites, as well as the development of an analysis tool to assess the degree of vulnerability, aiming to develop prevention measures. Full article

Human-induced climate change has profound effects on extreme events, particularly those linked to global warming, such as heatwaves, droughts, and wildfires. These events disrupt ecosystems, emphasizing the imperative to understand the interactions among them to gauge the risks faced by vulnerable communities. Vulnerability levels vary primarily based on a community’s resources. Rural areas, especially in the Mediterranean region of Europe, are experiencing acute depopulation, creating a complex situation affecting various aspects of society, from economic declines to cultural heritage loss. Population decline in rural regions weakens resources, leading to the abandonment of built environments, fostering desertification, and elevating the risk of wildfires. Communities undergoing this deterioration process become exceptionally vulnerable, especially when dealing with and recovering from extreme natural phenomena. This review offers insights into the dynamics of these hazards and the predominant challenges in rural areas. By focusing on a topic that has received limited attention, the aim is to inform future research initiatives, ultimately improving risk assessment and mitigation strategies for these vulnerable communities. Full article

In February 1963, a huge landslide (ca. 1,950,000 m³) blocked the Visočica River and, thus, formed Zavoj Lake. The primary objective of this research was to investigate the importance of snowmelt in relation to landslide occurrence and to define the critical climatic conditions that may trigger massive winter landslides. We used monthly precipitation and average monthly maximum temperature data from meteorological and precipitation stations in the Visočica River basin (Dojkinci) and in the immediate proximity of Lake Zavoj (Pirot, Dimitrovgrad and Topli Do) as data inputs to the Snow-Melt Landslide (SML) index. It considers the summed monthly precipitation for previous months that continuously have an average maximum temperature below 0 °C. According to this method, the event at Zavoj Lake stands out among all other precipitation and snowmelt values for the past 72 years. After applying the SML index, all stations showed values of >300 mm for February 1963, which we consider as the threshold value for potential landslides appearance. In addition to meteorological data, we applied the SML index to data from the Coordinated Regional Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX) regional climate model outputs for the region from 2022 to 2100. As expected, climate change will have influenced the temperature values, especially during the winter. Conversely, the study area is experiencing drastic changes in land use caused by depopulation, leading to a reduced risk of winter landslides in the Visočica basin. We suggest that future climatic conditions in the area will make it more likely to experience extreme summer precipitation events, which might trigger large landslides. The SML method can be implemented for all landscapes that experience snowy winters, providing information in a timely manner so that local residents can react properly when the probability of landslide occurrence rises. The SML index, grounded in essential meteorological principles, provides a tailor-made, data-driven methodology applicable across varied geographical settings. Its utility extends to mitigating hydro-meteorological hazards on scales ranging from local to national scales, offering diverse and effective early warning solutions. Full article

UNESCO-designated geoparks, intended for conservation, seek to drive economic development via geological heritage education and tourism. Since 2018, within the framework of the European project Atlantic Geoparks (Interreg Atlantic area program), the Valleys of Cantabria project has been promoted to declare a UNESCO Global Geopark (UGGp) in the Cantabria region (northern Spain). The Valles de Cantabria proposal, aligning with UNESCO objectives, evaluates the region’s geopark potential, emphasizing sustainable development and societal education. Covering 600 km² in eastern Cantabria, the territory involves 19 municipalities and has a population of 60,600. The geological context, ranging from the Triassic to the Quaternary periods, reflects the complex evolution of this territory, which has been influenced by tectonic forces, geomorphological processes, and sea-level changes. Detailed reviews and fieldwork performed by experts, including university researchers, have identified 66 sites of geological interest (SGI). The geosites, which have different geological–geomorphological significances, have been assessed according to their scientific value (including educational importance), potential of use (mainly geotouristic use), and vulnerability or risk of degradation. The geological heritage is directly related to the high biodiversity of the area. The challenges of this territory, such as depopulation and the low income of the inhabitants, can be improved with the declaration of a geopark, which would help to create new job opportunities related to geotourism and sustainable development. UNESCO recognition could catalyse scientific research, address socioeconomic challenges, and foster rural revitalization, strengthening the symbiotic relationship between geoconservation and local economic growth. Collaboration with other Atlantic geoparks has enabled the exchange of experiences that will hopefully deepen in the future. Consequently, the aim of this work is to explore the potential of this territory in terms of high-quality geological features and biological and cultural heritage, as well as to evaluate the socioeconomic context that makes the territory potentially suitable for promoting a UGGp. Full article