Retrospective analysis of urban development in the Spanish Mediterranean coast

Spain's economic development is strongly influenced by an important urban growth on the coast for the past 50 years. This fact is associated with economic cycles and especially with the emergence of mass tourism. This phenomenon, marked by a strong seasonality, generates considerable controversy in urban and infrastructures planning. Resource consumption, land transformation and service management are variables to study to assess the development of the Spanish coast. It is necessary to introduce new systems of control and observation in the evolution of urban space towards ensuring the sustainability and competitiveness of our cities. The application of spatial information technologies to traditional governance methods is in this sense a future strategic commitment. This methodology is currently being investigated in the European Union. This paper takes a retrospective analysis of the evolution of the coastal development in the Mediterranean through the use of GIS tools and spatial information systems implemented in recent European research projects as OSDDT, Otremed and Pays-Med-Urban. © 2013 WIT Press.