Environmental-economic dimensions of land-use transformations: exploring the Mediterranean rural sustainable development

Based on a concise literature review, we discussed the main processes of nonagricultural land-use transformations, focusing on significant (biophysical and socioeconomic) transformations leading to land degradation and its main relationship with the notion of “rural development.” By considering processes that stimulate urbanization, recreational, tourism, industrialization, infrastructure development, mining, and landfill demands, relevant socioeconomic implications in rural development patterns and processes were defined. Subsequently, considerations were made regarding a possible rethinking of the traditional “environmental spirals” underlying land degradation in rural landscapes of Mediterranean Europe. In this perspective, as a novel contribution to applied economics, long-term soil degradation processes were framed entirely considering their socioeconomic dimensions. Based on a restricted set of theoretical assumptions, these transformations were discussed in light of the evolving territorial context driven by agricultural intensification and compact urbanization between the early 1950s and the late 1980s, and more recently, by economic decentralization, land abandonment, and the decline of “center-periphery” socioeconomic relationships observed in Europe. Implications of the (un)sustainable extraction of natural resources highlight the centrality of applied economics, urban and regional sciences, economic geography, and demography in environmental studies, recognizing land degradation as an important component within the hegemonic concept of “sustainable (rural) development.”