Despoblamiento y desertificación demográfica en Galicia

Abstract

In this paper, we performed an analysis of two phenomena which affect Galicia in an intense way. On the one hand, depopulation, as the accelerated loss of demographic effects, and, on the other hand, desertification, or the abandonment of rural inhabited locations. By using a parish scale as the primary territorial observatory, as well as a citizen cartography, it was possible to unveil all changes of the territorial occupation that has been taking place in Galicia during the last decades (in the intervals 1950-2000 and 2000-2011). Depopulation and desertification are the specular image of urbanization. Both phenomena affect equally to the four provinces, in a way that highlights the contrast between the littoral and the interior from a demographic point of view. This factor tends to become more pronounced with the materialization of two different territorial dynamics, which shape “winning areas” and “losing areas”. In other words, well-defined and dynamic urban areas as opposed to the increasing “demographic exclusion” of certain sectors.