The Water Framework Directive institutionalises participatory processes in river basin planning across the European Union. This paper reports on three case studies from southern Europe where conflicts over water exist. In each a different method for participation was experimentally employed: scenario workshops, mediated modelling, and social multicriteria evaluation. Scenario workshops and mediated modelling proved well suited to the early stages of a planning process (problem solving and identification of goals and alternatives) and to be good at educating participants and supporting capacity building. Their performance was less satisfactory with respect to resolving long-standing conflicts and achieving consensus. In comparison, social multicriteria evaluation was better able to address the evaluation of alternatives, reveal trade-offs, and aid convergence between divergent stakeholders' views, but it relied more heavily on experts and allowed less participation and deliberation in goal-setting than the other two methods. These results show complementarities amongst methods which imply that hybrid or combined approaches would be best for aiding the water planning process. They also reveal problems confronting the use of participatory approaches and constraints which prevent theoretical promise from being converted into practical results.

Spatial planning, as a regional and subregional public policy, establishes a territorial integral vision implemented through spatial plans, aimed at achieving a balanced and sustainable spatial development and improving quality of life. To enhance the effectiveness of these plans, evaluation and monitoring are needed. This paper critically analyses the monitoring and evaluation framework for spatial plans in Spain. Based on extensive literature, legislative, and document review, as well as in-depth interviews with key stakeholders, the paper describes the legal provisions of spatial plans and how they work in practice. One of the main conclusions is that, although many laws and spatial plans have been adopted in Spain, they do not include sufficient details and provisions regarding basic monitoring and evaluation procedures. This practice is in fact highly dependent on the political will of regional governments. The main progress on monitoring and evaluation of spatial plans is achieved thanks to the enforcement of environmental legislation. Finally, it is suggested that the role of specific bodies, public participation, territorial observatories, and indicator systems should be strengthened as key elements of the evaluation and monitoring procedures for spatial planning.

Addressing environmental governance conflicts requires the adoption of a complexity approach to carry out an adaptive process of collective learning, exploration, and experimentation. In this article, we hypothesize that by integrating community-based participatory mapping processes with internet-based collaborative digital mapping technologies, it is possible to create tools and spaces for knowledge co-production and collective learning. We also argue that providing a collaborative web platform enables these projects to become a repository of activist knowledge and practices that are often poorly stored and barely shared across communities and organizations. The collaborative Webmap of Water Conflicts in Andalusia, Spain, is used to show the benefits and potential of mapping processes of this type. The article sets out the steps and methods used to develop this experience: (i) background check; (ii) team discussion and draft proposal; (iii) in-depth interviews, and (iv) integrated participative and collaborative mapping approach. The main challenge that had to be addressed during this process was to co-create a tool able to combine the two perspectives that construct the identity of integrated mapping: a data-information-knowledge co-production process that is useful for the social agents—the environmental activists—while also sufficiently categorizable and precise to enable the competent administrations to steer their water management.

El impacto del Covid-19 ha supuesto una brusca paralización del turismo generando incertidumbre a nivel internacional. En este marco, el último periodo de auge del sector, correspondiente a la recuperación económica en 2012 y la abrupta nueva recesión en 2020, supone un periodo privilegiado para examinar los impactos del turismo en los centros urbanos. Este trabajo analiza la relación entre procesos sociodemográficos y el alquiler turístico en el último periodo de auge del turismo, tomando como caso de estudio los centros históricos de dos ciudades andaluzas de marcado carácter turístico: Sevilla y Cádiz. El análisis se fundamenta en los datos sociodemográficos suministrados por el Censo de población y vivienda y el Padrón de habitantes, junto a información de alquileres suministrados por distintas fuentes. Como resultado, el trabajo demuestra estadísticamente la relación de la distribución de los alquileres turísticos con varios procesos sociodemográficos y su influencia en la pérdida de población.

Environmental issues such as the progressive loss of biodiversity on a global scale and climate change cannot be separated from other territorial problems caused by social injustice, economic inequality, access to natural resources, gender violence and the fight for human and nature’s rights. The evaluation of biodiversity management strategies must by necessity draw on a retrospective look at the interpretation of the problem and the conceptual approach of the general territorial management policies in which they are framed. From a critical view, these approaches have different nuances depending on the historical journey, theories and main actors involved with territorial policies in different regions of the world. In this work, we apply qualitative content analysis to contrast the key concepts on which the main European territorial policies of recent decades have been based with the main guidelines of the emerging Latin American territorial perspectives. Thus, we seek to initiate a dialogue between the northern hemisphere’s globally hegemonic notions of nature, territory, biodiversity and its management and new theories and proposals from the South, whilst simultaneously contrasting both with the content of the latest Convention on Biological Biodiversity Strategic Plan 2011–2020. We conclude with some recommendations aimed at building bridges and contributing to the construction of future global conservation strategies from a critical and territorial perspective that tends towards integrating sustainability with social and environmental justice.