Spain’s Natural Environment: Hazards, Pollution, Conservation, and Climate
Nature and Environment in Spain
Natural hazards are environmental features that threaten human life or can produce catastrophic consequences. Geological risks originate from within the Earth or externally. Hydrometeorological hazards, such as floods, are frequently caused by heavy rainfall. Actions against these natural hazards include:
- Construction of infrastructure to mitigate common risks.
- Creation of welfare and surveillance systems.
- Implementation of emergency protocols by promoting natural risk awareness.
Natural Pollution
Caused by primary pollutants discharged directly into the atmosphere and secondary pollutants generated by chemical and photochemical reactions of primary pollutants. Consequences include:
- Acid rain: Precipitation with higher acidity than normal.
- Ozone layer depletion: Decrease in thickness due to chlorine from CFCs in aerosols and coolants.
- Greenhouse effect: Caused by the emission of gases like methane and carbon dioxide, dust, and noise pollution.
Environmental Subsystem Alteration
- Destruction of vegetation cover due to agriculture, livestock, urban development, industrial plants, and forest fires affecting large woodlands.
- Soil pollution from industrial and municipal discharges.
- Soil erosion, a natural phenomenon exacerbated by human actions like logging or fire. Deforestation and overgrazing increase erosion, posing a large-scale problem, especially in semiarid regions.
- Desertification or loss of fertile soil is the result of extreme erosion.
- Water overexploitation results from increased water consumption for agricultural, urban, and industrial uses.
- Aquifer contamination comes from the disposal of human-produced waste (rural, industrial, and urban).
- Municipal solid waste produced in large cities and towns results in peripheral landfills polluting soil and water.
Protected Areas
In Spain, the protection of natural areas began in the early 20th century, with the National Parks Act enacted in 1916. The previous law on nature protection areas was in force until 1989 when the current law on the conservation of natural areas and flora and fauna was approved. It defines:
- Parks: Areas of great ecological and natural significance, often characterized by their geological structure, basin, vegetation, or fauna. National parks may allow the exploitation of primary resources while promoting rural tourism.
- Nature reserves: Protect ecosystems or biotic factors.
- Natural features: Natural formations of notable uniqueness, rarity, or beauty.
- Protected areas: Preserved for aesthetic and cultural values.
Climate Factors and Elements
Climate Factors in Spain
Factors influencing Spain’s climate include:
- The peninsular location’s latitude.
- Limited sea influence due to its width.
- Relief, including altitude and orientation.
- Thermodynamic factors responsible for atmospheric circulation and air masses, determining weather and climate patterns.
Atmospheric Circulation in Altitude:
- Driven by the jet stream, a strong, tubular wind current circulating between nine and eleven km altitude. It influences surface weather depending on variations in speed and seasonal movements.
Surface Circulation depends on:
- Action centers: Areas of high and low pressure. High pressure or anticyclones are areas of high pressure surrounded by lower pressure. Winds circulate clockwise around high-pressure areas, producing stable weather. Low-pressure areas are surrounded by higher pressure. Action centers include thermal formations (when air mass cools) and dynamic formations (within the jet stream).
- Air masses: Large bodies of air with specific temperature, pressure, and humidity characteristics.
- Fronts: Surfaces separating two air masses of different characteristics. The most important front in Spain is the polar front, separating tropical and polar air masses.
Climate Elements
- Insolation: Incoming solar radiation amount per land area.
- Cloud cover: Total or partial sky coverage by clouds.
- Temperature: Degree of heat in the air.
- Humidity: Amount of water vapor the air contains.
- Fog: Suspension of tiny water droplets in the lower atmospheric layer.
- Haze: Reduced visibility caused by a large amount of fine dust particles in the lower atmospheric levels.
- Pressure: Depending on air mass characteristics, varying throughout the year in Spain.
- Wind: Horizontal movement of air.
- Rain: Falling water.
- Evaporation: Process of water turning to steam at ambient temperature.
- Evapotranspiration: Moisture loss in a given space.
- Aridity: Increases with temperature and low rainfall.