Salvador Gil Guirado

• PhD
• Associate Professor of Human Geography at University of Murcia

Drought represents a prevalent climate risk in the Mediterranean region. In the context of climate change, an increase in both frequency and intensity is anticipated over the next century. In order to effectively manage future scenarios where global warming overlays natural climate variability, a thorough analysis of the nature of droughts prior to...

En el presente capítulo se comparan desde el punto de vista hidroclimático, político y social tres de las mayores sequías producidas en Mendoza en los últimos 120 años (1924/1925; 1968/1969 y 2010/2015; 2017/ 2019). De esta manera, se exploran los procesos a través de los cuales la escasez y la carencia son construidas discursiva y políticamente a...

Drought represents a prevalent climate risk in the Mediterranean region. In the context of climate change, an increase in both frequency and intensity is anticipated over the next century. In order to effectively manage future scenarios where global warming overlays natural climate variability, a thorough analysis of the nature of droughts prior to...

Drought is a common climate risk in the Mediterranean region, but in connection to climate change, its frequency and severity are predicted to increase during the next century. In order to better manage future scenarios in which global warming will be superimposed to natural climate variability, the nature of droughts before industrial times should...

España es uno de los países de Europa más expuestos a los peligros naturales. El aumento de la vulnerabilidad y la exposición experimentado desde 1990 ha resultado determinante para el incremento del grado de riesgo que padecen algunos ámbitos regionales y locales. A ello se une el incremento registrado en la frecuencia e intensidad de algunos peli...

Population disaggregation methods are a land management tool that is necessary to robustly assess the exposure of populations to natural hazards. The aim of these methods is to translate population values from large spatial units to smaller spatial units. Due to their improvement, the accuracy in quantifying the population exposed to natural hazard...

La planificación para la movilidad sostenible requiere de una visión holística y de una aproximación desde diferentes enfoques. Se hace necesario conocer las trayectorias investigadoras y los campos de desarrollo de los que se nutre esta disciplina, con un notable carácter innovador. Para abordar lo anterior de una forma ordenada, en el presente tr...

We analyze the case of pro-pluvia rogations (PPR) performed by the Catholic Church in Murcia, Spain since 1600. PPR were ceremonies to ask God for rain. We show a structural break in the prayer data during the 1830s, coinciding with the end of the ancien régime in Spain. PPR responded to environmental shocks and were used by the civil and ecclesias...

El litoral de la Región de Murcia es un espacio geográficamente propicio para la generación de inundaciones, que en las últimas décadas ha padecido un proceso de ocupación de lechos de inundación sin una correcta planificación. A este respecto, conviene analizar el papel de la ordenación del territorio en la gestión del riesgo de inundación median-...

We use data from marriage records in Murcia, Spain, in the eighteenth century to study the role of women in social mobility in the pre-modern era. Our measure of social standing is identification as a don or doña , an honorific denoting high, though not necessarily noble, status. We show that this measure, which is acquired over the lifecycle, show...

El estudio de inundaciones históricas ha generado en los últimos años metodologías que persiguen transformar la información cualitativa contenida en la documentación histórica en información cuantitativa. Sin embargo, la diversidad de los contextos culturales e históricos, así como la heterogeneidad de las fuentes documentales, dificulta la capacid...

In a changing climate and in social context, tools and databases with high spatiotemporal resolution are needed for increasing the knowledge on the relationship between meteorological events and flood impacts; hence, analysis of high-resolution spatiotemporal databases with detailed information on the frequency, intensity, and impact of floods is n...

The study of historical floods is a growing research trend that has generated numerous methodologies that aim to convert the qualitative historical documentation into quantitative information. This codification process aims to make comparable in time and space the manner in which past societies adapted to floods, and so extract the positive or nega...

En el presente capítulo se comparan desde el punto de vista hidroclimático, político y social, tres de las mayores sequías producidas en Mendoza en los últimos 120 años (1924/25; 1968/69 y 2010/15; 2017/19). De esta manera, se exploran los procesos a través de los cuales, la escasez y la carencia son construidas discursiva y políticamente a lo larg...

In Spain, floods represent the danger originated in nature that causes greatest loss to both human life and economy. Understanding the risk as a social construction, evaluation of the modification results proves to be crucial in order to improve the exposed population's adaptation. The use of indices is one of the several methods used to carry carr...

The risk of flooding on the Spanish Mediterranean coast is a constant threat whose importance has progressively increased in recent decades despite the enormous efforts made to mitigate it. Of the two strategies practiced to reduce the effects of this danger, structural measures have prevailed to a great degree over non-structural ones during this...

In the current context of climate change–induced warming, interest in analysing the impact of volcanic eruptions on the climate has renewed. The main conclusions from related papers indicate that volcanic eruptions alter the terrestrial radiative balance and cause cooling in the years after an eruption: known as “years without summer.” These episod...

Rainwater harvesting from rooftops catchments represents a climate change adaptation measure that is especially significant in areas affected by water scarcity. This article develops a Geographic Information Systems based methodology to evaluate the spatial distribution of rainwater catchment potential to identify the most favorable urban areas for...

Desalination for sustaining agricultural production is conceived as an alternative water source in some Mediterranean countries faced with climatological and hydrological constraints. Although high costs are often cited as limiting factors, how farmers discern desalinated water has not been discussed in-depth in the literature. This paper aims to d...

La cuenca del Ródano se enfrenta a corto y medio plazo a importantes descensos en el volumen de sus aguas y a cambios en la estacionalidad del régimen hidrológico, lo que generará importantes repercusiones económicas y ambientales. El análisis llevado a cabo en el presente artículo emplea un modelo hidrológico sobre valores climáticos del periodo a...

Research interest in massive online and open courses (MOOCs) is rapidly growing, questioning who enrolls, why and how to conceive engagement, and success rates. This study is focused on MOOC-takers behavior obtained from a seven-week MOOC experience on natural risks. Data scraping principles have been used to collect data. Demographics, success-dro...

Although desalination water cost and quality standards have been widely studied, less attention has been paid to understanding how desalination plant managers and irrigation communities interact to address water scarcity. This paper aims to approach these questions from experience in Alicante and Murcia (Spain). Two specific questionnaires have bee...

Flood databases of high spatio-temporal resolution are a necessary tool for proper spatial planning, especially in areas with high levels of exposure and danger to floods. This study presents the preliminary results of the Spanish Mediterranean Coastal Flood (SMC-Flood) database covering the municipalities in this region. This database collects inf...

Historical climatology has remarkable potentialities to produce climatic reconstructions with high temporal resolution. However, some methodological limitations hinder the spatial development of this discipline. This study presents a new approach to historical climatology that overcomes some of the limitations of classical approaches, such as the r...

The Spanish Mediterranean river basin provides a good background for studying floods from documentary and bibliographical sources within the specialty of historical climatology. This study region's long history of human occupation and climatic conditions together determine a high risk of flooding. As a result, there exists an enormous amount of doc...

La caracterización y contextualización climática de alta resolución espacio temporal, es clave para analizar la variabilidad observada, dentro del debate acerca del cambio climático antropogénico. Para esto es necesario disponer series temporales largas y realizar un tratamiento estadístico robusto. La ciudad de Murcia dispone de una las series te...

Information about the income distribution in pre-industrial societies is sparse. We analyze labor income inequality in 18th century Murcia, a city in Mediterranean Spain. The historical income distribution of this region is relatively unknown, despite it having on of the highest urbanization rates in Europe in the pre-industrial era. We first use a...

Floods are the natural disaster that affects the greatest number of people and causes the highest economic losses in the world. However, some areas, such as the Mediterranean Coast of the Iberian Peninsula, are especially exposed to this natural hazard. The problem takes on even more relevance when a changing social dynamic is added to the natural...

The historical climatology has remarkable potentialities to produce climatic reconstructions with high temporal resolution. However, there are methodological limitations that hinder the spatial development of this discipline. This study presents a new approach to Historical Climatology that overcomes some of the limitations of classical approaches...

La captación de aguas pluviales supone una importante fuente de suministro alternativa a los recursos convencionales. Ante un escenario pronosticado de reducción de precipitaciones y de aumento de los eventos extremos, su consideración en el planeamiento y diseño de las ciudades supone una estrategia de adaptación al cambio climático. La presente c...

Las posibilidades de planificación por parte de las administraciones públicas, ante cualquier actuación encaminada a mejorar la adaptación a amenazas provenientes de procesos naturales, tiene su origen en la opinión generalizada respecto a las posibilidades de evitarlas o, al menos, paliar sus efectos negativos. Estudiada desde los puntos de vista...

On the year 1783, the eruption of Laki volcano in Iceland produced strong anomalies in the atmosphere, including decreases in summer temperatures and vast socioeconomic impacts. However, the study of this event has been traditionally focused on central and northern Europe. Thus, the aim of this work is to analyze these anomalies in the Spanish Medi...

Drought events are a recurrent phenomenon on Mediterranean Regions. Present context of global environmental change has drawn more attention to the study of climatic variability related to extreme patterns. Here, we investigate the so called megadrougths, which are long duration droughts with complex and diverse atmospheric- hydrological processes a...

In the past twenty-five years there has been a significant rise in flood risk on the Mediterranean coast due to the increase in vulnerability and exposure to the hazard of heavy rains. This reflects the effects of urban expansion from 1990 to the present day, especially in the years of the so-called “property boom” which has made this part of Spain...

Pocos aspectos tienen mayor relevancia que los destinados a mejorar la seguridad de las personas, máxime en un contexto de cambio global en que los desastres naturales y el número de personas afectadas aumentan año a año . Este escenario hace necesario reducir la vulnerabilidad y mejorar la estrategia de adaptación y resiliencia de las sociedades....

Over the last years, the Spanish Mediterranean coastal area has undergone significant increase in the number of floods and their consequential damages. However, according to climatic records, this trend is more related to an exposure multiplication than with the increase of extreme rainfall events. Within this framework, it is interesting to evalua...

Las inundaciones son el peligro que más pérdidas económicas ocasiona a nivel mundial. En España, de acuerdo a lo datos del Consorcio de Compensación de Seguros ocupa también esa posición en importancia. Entre 1995 y 2014 los excesos de agua generaron unas pérdidas de 3,5 miles de millones de euros y 311 personas fallecidas. De acuerdo a la bibliogr...

La evolución en el conocimiento y estudio del riesgo de inundación parece haber determinado diferentes orientaciones y enfoques en la forma de abordar su solución. Durante buena parte del siglo pasado la mayoría de los desarrollos metodológicos apuntaran a la estimación de cuestiones relativas al factor físico del riesgo y, en consecuencia, las est...

In a context of increasingly severe weather disasters around the globe, planning strategies are critical. The study of vulnerability to climate risks reveals the failures of current social models to adapt to a changing environment due to heterogeneous cultural, economic, political and historical developments. Any discussion regarding vulnerability...

Risk analysis in urban areas is a legal requirement in Spain. The state legislation of land and various regional regulations of territorial and urban planning include an obligation to produce maps showing the risk in land use processes. In the last three decades flood risk has increased significantly in some Spanish regions due to an increase in hu...

Floods are the natural hazard that generates greater impacts in the area. One of the factors that facilitate the lack of strategic planning is the absence of a correct chronology of flood episodes. In this situation, land use plans, are based on inadequate chronologies that do not report the real risk of the population of this area. To reduce this...

This paper analyzes human factors that have been able to influence the variability of floods along last 6 centuries (demography, hydraulic infrastructures, urban development...). This approach improves strongly understanding of mechanisms producing major flood events on Eastern coast of Iberian Peninsula, with identification and evaluation of natur...

Landscape assessment methods have traditionally valued the landscape through a panel of experts with little or no participation of the population. However, after the adoption of the European Landscape Convention (ELC), the perception and the participation of the population has played an increasingly important role in landscape evaluation and planni...

In recent decades there has been a significant increase in economic losses caused by flood events on the coastal region of Southeastern Spain. The increase of extreme rainfall events forecast by the climate change models is currently not reflected in the statistics which suggests that the principal cause is due to the exposure experienced within th...

En las últimas décadas se ha producido un incremento significativo de los episodios de inundación en el litoral de la Región de Murcia que hace cuestionar el papel desempeñado por las estrategias preventivas de ordenación. En este trabajo se evalúa la eficiencia de las medidas de protección de cauces incluidas en las Directrices y Plan de Ordenació...

A significant increase in episodes of flooding on the coast of Murcia occurred in last decades, questioning the role of preventive strategies on planning. In this paper is evaluated the efficiency of river channel protection actions included in the Guidelines and Planning of Región de Murcia Coast. The cadastral information and the hydrological mod...

Introducción En España la planificación territorial tiene una tradición corta y limitada como disciplina consciente de su propia importancia. No es hasta el año 1973 cuando se crea el primer órgano administrativo dedicado al análisis o diseño de políticas para la ordenación del territorio, el Ministerio de Planificación del Desarrollo, encargado a...

In a changing climate and environmental scenario (Jones, Osborn & Briffa, 2001; Bradley & Jones, 1992; Bradley, Briffa, Cole, Hughes & Osborn, 2003 ), where the impact of extreme weather conditions seem to be increasing because of a greater exposure to as well as because of a greater recurrence of extreme weather conditions (Easterling et al, 2000;...

Guirado, S. (2013). Reconstrucción climática histórica y análisis evolutivo Cuadernos Geográficos 52(2), 132-151 Reconstrucción climática histórica y análisis evolutivo de la vulnerabilidad y adaptación a las sequías e inundaciones en la Cuenca del Segura (España) y en la Cuenca del Río Mendoza (Argentina) Salvador Gil Guirado 1 1. Introducción La...

La riada de 19 de octubre de 1879 que afectó a la cuenca del río Segura marca un punto de inflexión en la política de defensa contra avenidas a nivel internacional. Un evento natural de características funestas pone de acuerdo a todos los agentes sociales de la época para llevar a cabo el primer plan de defensa integral contra inundaciones a nivel...

RESUMEN La Cuenca del Río Quípar, en el Sureste de la Península Ibérica es un espacio de clima mediterráneo semiárido. El análisis climático no muestra una tendencia clara asociable a un calentamiento reciente, pero el estudio realizado evidencia una ligera tendencia al aumento de temperaturas y a la disminución de precipitaciones. Esto puede reper...

La sal ha sido un elemento vital en la Historia de la Humanidad. En algunos lugares ha servido como elemento de trueque e intercambio, hasta como unidad monetaria. En regiones como Murcia, con escasas precipitaciones y elevada insolación y unos veranos extremadamente secos, se cuenta con casi una treintena de espacios ordenados para que precipite l...

In regions such as Murcia, has been a great interest in certain spaces and order condition for obtaining salt. This planning has created their own landscapes: the saltworks, distinguishing between coastal and inland. The working methodology has allowed us to locate, describe and explain almost thirty saline throughout the Region of Murcia. Some con...

Salt is an essential element in the everyday activities of all human groups. In order to capture and collect salt, territories have been shaped into purpose-specific landscapes. There are two main types, namely saltworks and saltmines. The placement and exploitation of saltmines is linked to the presence of some salty element that mixes with the wa...

La política de transportes en España está primando el ferrocarril de Alta Velocidad. Se analiza la morfología de su trazado y los servicios que presenta. Se aborda el estudio de las mejoras que comporta para la accesibilidad y la ordenación del territorio. Se comprueba que se plantean numerosas dificultades. La debilidad de su funcionamiento es cla...