Analysis of the rural landscape of Moriscos, Salamanca

A rural landscape is a geographical area located between towns, that combines biotic, abiotic and anthropic elements. This image shows an inland landscape, located in the village of Moriscos, in the region of La Armuña, province of Salamanca.

The picture shows a relief characterized by a plain with a small slope and with no mountain ranges, valleys or coastal features. Moreover, this landscape belongs to the northern meseta of the Iberian Peninsula and, as I said before, it has a small slope, so altitude range goes from 848 meters over the sea level, in the urban area, to 870 meters over the sea level, in the southern region. Besides, the vegetation in this area is very scarce and scattered and public parks in the urban area are the most vegetated places of the landscape. However, these areas usually have vegetation based on shrubs, bushes, pines and meadows such as holm oak or cork oak; and a fauna based on lynxes, wolfs, foxes, rabbits, bears, deer, partridges and falcons. In addition, we can see in the background that there is a green region, probably a riparian forest of sallows, ash tree or poplar. Furthermore, in this image we cannot appreciate any water fountain like rivers, deltas, lakes… but there are some small springs of water that are often dry during the hottest seasons, such as the stream of Romo, the stream of Matahijos or the stream of Blanquillo. According to all of these, this region would have an interior Mediterranean climate with 454.9 mm of precipitation per year (mainly in autumn and winter, season in which the maximum precipitation levels are registered: 148.1 mm) and an average temperature of 11.8 °C throughout the year (the lowest temperature is in winter with 4°C and the maximum temperature is in summer with 20.1°C). Also, we can add that this is a semiarid zone with a large temperature range and an irregular precipitation distribution.

Secondly, with regard to the land uses and activities we can say that farming and livestock raising are the main activities. Specifically, dry farming agriculture specialized in cereals and sunflower is predominant (it occupies 1100 hectares in the region); in spite of the fact there are a few scattered plots of irrigation farming dedicated to corn and beet (that occupy about 15 hectares). Also, livestock raising is other of the economic activities in the zone. In fact, there are some cattle farms such as “Granja Capea”, in the west part of the landscape. Apart from this, industrial activities are much reduced (there is only a carpentry and a butcher’s in the zone) and also recreational activities are scarce (there is only a bar in “Plaza Grande” and a small hostel). A secondary use of land could be residential because we can see that there is a village in the center of the landscape whose houses are made out of adobe bricks and organized within a linear way. With regard to the arable lands, we can say that there are small size plots (less than an hectare), with a regular shape, distributed within an open field pattern and that there are probably private. Besides, these arable lands are dedicated to extensive farming, with a monoculture crop variety and most probably modern mechanized equipment.

As a conclusion, some of the problems of the rural areas are under-population, this is not tha case of Moriscos (increasing population of 304 inhabitants) because is very near Salamanca; the lack of recreational activities and basic services such as education, health care, waste collection…; the bad communication systems that isolate some villages in winter; an ageing population as most of the inhabitants are elderly, and the lack of work places, fact that impulse a lot of young rural men and women to search for jobs in the towns. Among the measures that can be applied to deal with the previous problems we can mention the promotion for creating new enterprises and cooperatives in growing sectors such as ecologic farming. It will contribute to the creation of a strong economy based on a modern, developed agricultural activity. An effect of this would be the end of under-population and the lack of work for young people as the rural areas would need working people to sustain the developing economy. Besides, a measure to deal with the lack of basic services by the association of several villages. All these services would become more efficient. Finally, in spite of the fact this village is very well communicated with Salamanca by the railway and the A-62 highway, the way to deal with the bad communications of the rural areas would be to build a safe and efficient road system between the rural villages and the towns. (internet, acess to new technologies...)