Landscape quality has become a fundamental issue in the development of renewable energy (henceforth abbreviated RE) projects. Rapid technological advances in RE production and distribution, coupled with changing policy frameworks, bring specific challenges during planning in order to avoid degradation of landscape quality. The current work provides a comprehensive review on RE landscapes and the impacts of RE systems on landscape for most European countries. It is based on a review by an interdisciplinary international team of experts of empirical research findings on landscape impacts of RE from thirty-seven countries that have participated in the COST Action TU1401 Renewable Energy and Landscape Quality (RELY).

In contrast to the industrial agricultural systems aimed at producing unlabeled origin foods without unique characteristics, Multifunctional and Territorialized Agri-food Systems (MTAS) claim their identity in productions whose singularity comes from specific environmental conditions and distinctive knowhow—factors often linked to tradition. Their systemic complexity goes beyond the agri-food production function (high quality, sustainable, and differentiated by origin) because the territories gain cohesion and viability from the positive effects resulting therefrom: environmental quality—in the context of sustainable agriculture based on practices that respect the environment and the local productive vocation of the territories—, landscape value, greater economic diversification by stimulating integrated production chains, tourism potential, etc. In this context, the MTAS finds in the geographical indication one of the most expressive quality reference formulas for the identification of agri-food products. This paper delves into the regulatory nature of the main territorial indications (PDO, PGI) and explores their configuration and regulatory evolution, particularly focusing on the wine geographical indications—the first and most common ones. The Spanish indications are taken as the object of analysis, whose operational maturity reveals their solidity, but also their inadequacies, with the demand for adjustments for greater flexibility in the regulatory framework that identifies them as collective marks. Along the same lines, emphasis is placed on the recent advance of individualistic PDO figures, which call into question the very collective basis of the territorial trademark. These conceptual adaptations of geographical indications provide future lines of research necessary to interpret the coherence of these figures with the sustainable development of the territories, whose name they adopt to gain distinction and market competition.

El fomento del enoturismo se está convirtiendo en una estrategia cada vez más frecuente en las comarcas vitivinícolas del Duero que han consolidado su faceta productiva en torno a los vinos de calidad, y que ahora ponen en valor los elementos patrimoniales de unos paisajes vinculados al productivismo. Pero al tiempo, en los entornos más frágiles, en los espacios menos transformados y de alta concentración de bienes patrimoniales que los han posicionado como destinos turísticos, este sector está operando como palanca de reactivación y de inserción competitiva de unos viñedos cada vez más reconocidos y valorados. Para ilustrar este proceso, el artículo analiza la dinámica de unos viñedos cultivados en entornos de “alta densidad patrimonial”, la Sierra de Salamanca. The promotion of wine tourism is becoming an increasingly frequent strategy in the Douro wine regions. They have consolidated their productivity around quality wines and now highlight the heritage elements of landscapes linked to production. However, at the same time, in the least transformed areas with fragile environments but a high concentration of heritage assets -that position them as tourist destinations-, this wine sector is acting as a stimulus in the revival and competitive conservation of vineyards, more and more valued and recognised in the landscape as a tourism generator. To illustrate this process, this paper analyses the dynamics of vineyards cultivated in environments with a high density of heritage elements such as the Sierra de Salamanca (Spain).

En las últimas décadas están emergiendo en la escena vitivinícola de Castilla y León espacios tradicionales hasta ahora afectados por la crisis y el abandono. Vienen impulsados por nuevos actores que desarrollan iniciativas tan atentas a la calidad del vino como al territorio en el que se cultiva la vid. Las particulares condiciones del medio en el que se asientan los viñedos, confieren a estos espacios una singularidad paisajística difícilmente comparable, pero también dificulta su manejo y compromete la rentabilidad del cultivo, ocasionando su abandono con el consiguiente deterioro ambiental y pérdida de un valioso patrimonio cultural. Este artículo analiza la evolución de estos espacios vitivinícolas emergentes e indaga en las posibilidades que ofrecen iniciativas y medidas que tienen como finalidad corregir el abandono y el deterioro de los valores paisajísticos y patrimoniales de los viñedos en las Denominaciones de Origen Protegidas (DOPs) “Sierra de Francia”, “Cebreros”, “el Bierzo” y “Arribes”. Metodológicamente, se recurre al análisis de los datos oficiales, a la elaboración cartográfica y a las entrevistas con actores relevantes. Las conclusiones apuntan al valor desigual que están teniendo estas medidas y abundan en los retos que tienen ante sí los distintos agentes involucrados en la gestión de paisajes agrarios de alto valor patrimonial en entornos particularmente frágiles.

In the face of the confusion and uncertainty that COVID-19 has caused over the last year, Geography has proven to be a useful aid in the interpretation of the spatial dynamics that explain the transmission of the virus. Applied cartography and GIS analysis of epidemiological data have been consolidated as essential tools for interpreting the health crisis. This paper explores the usefulness of maps for the study of the evolution of the pandemic in Castile and Leon, one of the Spanish regions with the highest levels of infection and mortality. Based on the statistical variables of sick and dead people at the scale of the Basic Health Area (BHA), a first analytical approach is carried out by means of a sequence of dynamic maps during the first wave. Afterwards, a systematic study is carried out using thematic mapping for the period of the three waves, a period between March 2020 and March 2021. The analysis unravels the differential impact of the disease between rural and urban areas and reveals the problems of the mismatch between the functional divisions of the territory (BHA, as units of health analysis) and the scale of administrative management (municipalities, as the effective scale of action).

El sector vitivinícola se ha convertido en uno de los soportes más sólidos de la industria agroalimentaria de Castilla y León. Sin embargo, se ha prestado muy poca atención a su paisaje y a los valores patrimoniales que contiene. Como consecuencia de la falta de reconocimiento, se carece de mecanismos de gestión que orienten sus transformaciones y velen por la preservación de sus atributos más significativos. El presente artículo analiza las herramientas de gestión paisajística en uno de los ámbitos de montaña con mayor densidad patrimonial de España, la Sierra de Salamanca, con el objetivo de valorar las posibilidades que ofrece el Programa MaB (Unesco) en la Reserva de la Biosfera de las Sierras de Béjar y Francia para la preservación del paisaje vitivinícola de la DOP Sierra de Salamanca.