Intensive agriculture vs. Tourism development: The need for integrated planning in the coast of eastern Granada (Spain)

Abstract

In urban development policies, the idea that a community increases its competitiveness through adding economic sectors to its increasingly efficient "offer' seems to have become consolidated. We refer, for example, to the consolidation of communication infrastructure, the implantation of all types of urban resources, the diversity of the commercial fabric, diversification in employment opportunities. We also focus on economic sectors like tourism, cultural heritage, research and higher education, regional and local governance, etc. However, many territories have demonstrated how specialization can also been conducive to development. They have identified singular sectors and have been able to spatially localize the strengths and enhance them in detriment to other interests often unaffiliated to the local inherited development.

The Spanish Mediterranean coast has been over-exploited since the 1960's motivated by the tourist industry- specifically the 'sun and sand' sector, which has produced an enormous real estate stock with a very seasonal occupancy. Among the negative effects of this exaggerated exploitation is deterioration of the landscape or the overexploitation of water resources. This model of occupation has generated a chaotic conurbation in the majority of the coast, with the exception of a few protected natural spaces.

The case of the province of Granada is paradigmatic. The lack of rail and road connections like the recent Mediterranean highway has resulted in a space of more than 50 kilometers of coast with atypical conditions that we might call ' pre-touristic', without massive real estate projects and a conserving considerable potential for change. However, we are not talking about a protected natural space but rather a territory where the large scale tourist sector decided not to operate. The necessity to exploit the hours of sun, the lack of rainfall and the absence of industrialization characteristic of Andalucía, caused this territory to consolidate in the last three decades in lo a type of intensive agriculture based on the greenhouse.

Cultivating crops under plastic has been considered incompatible with tourism by the planners and urban designers of this territory. lt is only now that the local authorities have become conscious of the necessity to diversify the economic sectors of local development and seek compatibility of both sectors in a sustainable and integrated plan.

Within the context of the Master of Urban Planning at the University of Granada, an research is carried out that attempts singularize this coastal range, beyond the indistinct vision of the 'Plan del litoral andaluz' (PPCLA). lt is a multidisciplinary experience based on the participation of the local agents and focuses on identifying project criteria, ordering and territorial sustainable development. We present here the advances in this work in progress that seeks to rethink the future of the territory by integrating land use, multi-temporality, and innovation in both the agricultural and tourist sectors, and to exploit the natural resources while making the most of the landscape as well as the emerging local economies.