Resumen de Historical reconstructions of environmental conditions and land uses in coastal Aeolian Sedimentary Systems of the Canary Islands (Spain)
Coastal areas have been used by humans for millennia. Currently these environments are affected by important human pressures, e.g. settlements and tourism. From the natural point of view, these areas contain a number of ecosystems and landscapes some of which are very fragile, such as the sandy sedimentary systems (beaches and dune fields).
The main aim of this dissertation is "the study of the historical relationship between the natural processes and the human activities in the aeolian sedimentary systems of the Canary Islands". This aim can be divided in three objectives: (1) the establishment of a methodology that integrates different historical sources; (2) the study in depth of different aspects of the history of these systems to characterize their nature and dynamics, as well as the human uses on them; and (3) the determination of the interference degrees of the human activities on the natural processes of these systems.
This research has been developed in two coastal aeolian sedimentary systems located in the Canary Islands: Guanarteme (now disappeared) and La Graciosa.
The work has been done under the approach of Historical Ecology, i.e. the historical study of the nature-human relationship over ecosystems/landscapes. Therefore, a large variety of sources have been analyzed and integrated in order to get different scenarios corresponding to different phases of the history of the ecosystems/landscapes studied.
The results reveal the existence of several landforms and changes in the amount of sand in circulation in Guanarteme, and the remove of the vegetation cover and erosional processes in La Graciosa. Regarding the land use, traditional uses, such as grazing and cutting of wood for lime kilns, among others, in La Graciosa, and agriculture, urbanization, recreational uses and aggregate extraction, in Guanarteme, have definitively impacted their natural dynamics.
Finally, conclusions about sources and methods, and important findings, have been established, as well as some prospects.
