The assessment of the long-term impacts of drought on tree growth decline using tree-ring analyses may be used to test if plantations are more vulnerable to warming after successive droughts, leading to a “cumulative stress” effect. We selected 76 Pinus pinaster trees (declining and non-declining trees), and basal area increments over the last 20 years (BAI₂₀) were calculated to build the chronologies for the stand types and vigor classes. Resistance, recovery and resilience indices were calculated. Pearson correlations, analyses and Partial Least-Squares regression were used to analyze the relationships among the response and environmental variables. We found a negative and significant relationship between mean temperature for May and June of the current year and growth in the naturally regenerated stands. This negative effect on growth under warm spring conditions was more noticeable in plantations than in naturally regenerated stands. A negative trend along time was found for the resilience index in planted stands. Evapotranspiration, maximum temperature and annual radiation showed significant and negative correlations with the growth of declining trees from planted stands, indicating they are susceptible to drought stress. Declining trees in planted stands showed a loss of growth resilience, specifically a negative trend after successive droughts.

The effective and efficient planning of rural land-use changes and their impact on the environment is critical for land-use managers. Many land-use growth models have been proposed for forecasting growth patterns in the last few years. In this work; a cellular automata (CA)-based land-use model (Metronamica) was tested to simulate (1999–2007) and predict (2007–2035) land-use dynamics and land-use changes in Andalucía (Spain). The model was calibrated using temporal changes in land-use covers and was evaluated by the Kappa index. GIS-based maps were generated to study major rural land-use changes (agriculture and forests). The change matrix for 1999–2007 showed an overall area change of 674971 ha. The dominant land uses in 2007 were shrubs (30.7%), woody crops on dry land (17.3%), and herbaceous crops on dry land (12.7%). The comparison between the reference and the simulated land-use maps of 2007 showed a Kappa index of 0.91. The land-cover map for the projected PRELUDE scenarios provided the land-cover characteristics of 2035 in Andalusia; developed within the Metronamica model scenarios (Great Escape; Evolved Society; Clustered Network; Lettuce Surprise U; and Big Crisis). The greatest differences were found between Great Escape and Clustered Network and Lettuce Surprise U. The observed trend (1999–2007–2035) showed the greatest similarity with the Big Crisis scenario. Land-use projections facilitate the understanding of the future dynamics of land-use change in rural areas; and hence the development of more appropriate plans and policies