Spanish Landscapes: Ocean, Mountain, Mediterranean & Canary
Ocean Landscape
Topography:
- The mountainous character of the Galaico-Leonese Massif and the Cantabrian Mountains is present.
- The Cantabrian coast is steep and straight.
- The Galician coast features estuaries.
Climate:
- Oceanic or Atlantic climate: Characterized by mild temperatures throughout the year and low thermal amplitude, with cool summers and mild winters. Rainfall is abundant and regular, with a minimum in summer.
Hydrography:
- Rivers belong to the Norte watershed. They are short rivers with abundant and regular flow due to rainfall patterns.
- Includes rivers of Galicia’s coast.
Vegetation:
- Deciduous forests of oak and dense forests of beech.
- In poorer areas, thickets and meadows dominate.
- The meadows have a wide extension.
Soils:
- Soils are usually evolved with abundant organic matter, leaching, and acids.
- In siliceous zones: moist brown earth, Rankers, and podzols.
- In areas of limestone: limestone brown earth.
Mountain Landscape
Terrain:
- Mountain units: Pyrenees, Béticos Systems, Galaico-Leonese Massif, Iberian System, Cantabrian Mountains, Central System.
Climate:
- Cold mountain temperatures are low, with annual averages below 10 ºC. Very cold winters and cool, short summers. Precipitation (orographic) is high, and during the winters, it falls as snow.
Hydrography:
- Great peninsular rivers and their tributaries originate here. Abundant flow and mixed regime. Rivers in this course usually have a high erosive force.
- Lakes of glacial origin.
Vegetation:
- Stratified on floors.
- Cliseries plants: Pyrenees, Atlantic Mountains, Mediterranean mountains.
Soils:
- Immature, poorly developed due to steep slopes.
- Litosuelos, Rankers, and podzols in siliceous zones.
- Rendzinas in limestone areas.
Mediterranean Landscape
Topography:
- Alternating landscapes of vast plains of the interior and depressions, with mountain reliefs that enclose the plateau and the peripheral units.
- In coastal areas, marshes alternate with broad beaches, lagoons, and cliffs.
Climate:
- Mediterranean waterfront temperatures are smoother, with hot summers and mild winters. Inland, the winter-summer contrasts become very high. Rainfall is scarce and irregular, with summer aridity.
Hydrography:
- Includes the great courses on the Atlantic side: long rivers, plains, irregular regime, with marked aridity.
- The rivers of Mediterranean dimension, minus the Ebro, are short, poor, and very irregular flow, with deep autumnal droughts and floods.
- Baleares, Melilla, Ceuta have no real rivers.
Vegetation:
- Mediterranean sclerophyll forest with evergreen oak and cork trees.
- The scrub stage corresponds to a regressive state: Maquis and garrigue. The steppe fits most arid areas.
Soils:
- Soils are highly modified and eroded by human intervention.
- In siliceous rock: southern brown earth.
- In limestone: red soils.
- Vertisols in clay rocks.
- Brown limestone soils and rendzinas between zones.
- In drier areas, gray sub-desert soil.
Canary Islands Landscape
Relief:
- Volcanic.
- Lanzarote and Fuerteventura are very eroded and flattened relief.
- The remaining islands have a more rugged and mountainous relief. In Tenerife, Teide at 3718 m.
Climate:
- Subtropical: Temperatures are high throughout the year and very low thermal amplitude. Rainfall in the lowland areas is insufficient and irregular. Minima occur in the eastern islands. At higher elevations, the moisture increases.
Hydrography:
- Lack of permanent water courses. Surface runoff is limited to the network of ravines.
- Importance of aquifers.
Vegetation:
- Development of great richness and diversity, with endemic and relict species.
- Phasing of vegetation height.
- Emphasize the laurel, the Canary Island pine, fayal-heath, and palm.
Soils:
- Volcanic intrazonal little evolved.
- Litosuelos, gray-brown soils, and semi-desert soils.