This article presents a study based on the outputs from the LUISA Territorial modelling platform (Joint Research Centre of the European Commission) focused on regional and local future projections of land abandonment between 2015 and 2030. Spain is taken as representative of one of the countries highly affected by agricultural land abandonment in the European Union. The most relevant factors driving land abandonment (biophysical, agroeconomics, farm structure and demographic) are described and mapped. Results from the analysis reveal that the Galicia region, northern Spain (Asturias, Cantabria, Gipuzkoa, Bizkaia), north-eastern Spain (Aragón region), central Pyrenees/Ebro basin (Huesca, Navarra, Lleida) and south-eastern Spain (Murcia, Almería, Alicante, Málaga) are expected to undergo important abandonment processes. The study also concludes that land abandonment within mountainous, high nature value farmland and Natura 2000 areas is lower compared to the outside area without conservation and protection measures.

The fragmentation phenomenon has a significant effect on rockfall risk assessment. This information is difficult to obtain, but it is key to improving rockfall modelling. For this reason, the RockModels team has gathered data on the fragmentation of several natural events since 2014 that nowadays wants to share them with professionals, academics and stakeholders. The best way for the dissemination of this information is the use of standard or data specifications in order to be interoperable. A fragmentation rockfall database has been created using all the gathered information, according to the INSPIRE Natural Hazard Area Data Specification currently in force. However, new tables have had to be added, since this specification does not consider fragmentation data. There are currently 6000 records of geometries of source areas, envelopes, deposits and mostly individual blocks. A web mapping application, with an automatic function for coordinate reference system transformation, has been created to facilitate access to the spatial database information. All that was developed on open-source software such as OpenLayers JavaScript library, database (PostGre-PostGIS) and the map generating Web Map Service (GeoServer). As more data are collected, the database can be easily updated and the new information will be published. Moreover, to improve data interpretation, a future task is to incorporate 3D models on the web application. The existence of this public database will facilitate research and advance in knowledge of this kind of natural hazards. Graphical abstract Rockfall volume distribution inventory data. Georeferenced rockfall database including fragmentation data according to Technical Data Specifications of INSPIRE for natural hazards zone. Database mapping of rockfall inventory data in a WMS open access. Geometric modelling and geovisualization to fragmentation process in rockfall investigations.

A necessary and effective coordination between cadastre and land registry has always existed in Spain, but the difficulties have only been specifically addressed in the last few years. The aim of this study is to illustrate, analyse, and evaluate advances in this coordination in Spain from the beginnings of the current system in the early twentieth century, with the cadastre and land registry operating as separate organisations. A preliminary study was made in 2002 of the difficulties that needed to be overcome to achieve an ideal coordination of mainly mapped information. The study was made by gathering and analysing the opinions of various specialists who have dealt with the issue of coordination. For this research, qualitative information (current and historical) was gathered by querying documents about cadastre and land registry coordination in Spain. This information was studied and compared to identify the problems and challenges. A survey in 2012 analysed the relationship between the cadastre and land registry from the point of view of the general public in the city of Gandia. The Spanish government enacted the first specific and effective legislation on coordination in 2015 (Act 13/2015), and much has changed since its introduction. During the last five years of application, each of the problems initially highlighted has been monitored and analysed, and the difficulties that have arisen have been noted. In this study, each of these problems and challenges is analysed from various perspectives: querying documents (norms, budgets, official news, etc.), websites, digital applications, observation, and interviews. The main results of the case study in Spain are as follows: coordination is generally indispensable and cannot be postponed; there is a difficult understanding between the organisations involved; the general public associate the word “cadastre” with taxes and not with security in the demarcation of property; political will and understanding is necessary; the process is slow and requires long-term agreements; an improvement in the quality of maps is fundamental; and technology is not a problem.

Some of the most powerful spatial analysis software solutions (Oracle, Google Earth Engine, PostgreSQL + PostGIS, etc.) are currently performing geometric calculations directly on the ellipsoid (a quadratic surface that models the earth shape), with a double purpose: to attain a high degree of accuracy and to allow the full management of large areas of territory (countries or even continents). It is well known that both objectives are impossible to achieve by means of the traditional approach using local mathematical projections and Cartesian coordinates. This paper demonstrates in a quantitative methodological way that most of the spatial analysis software products make important deviations in calculations regarding to geodesics, being the users unaware of the magnitude of these inaccuracies, which can easily reach meters depending on the distance. This is due to the use of ellipsoid calculations in an approximate way (e.g., using a sphere instead of an ellipsoid). This paper presents the implementation of two algorithms that solve with high accuracy (less than 100 nm) and efficiently (few iterations) two basic geometric calculations on the ellipsoid that are essential to build more complex spatial operators: the intersection of two geodesics and the minimum distance from a point to a geodesic.

A rule-based topology software system providing a highly flexible and fast procedure to enforce integrity in spatial relationships among datasets is presented. This improved topology rule system is built over the spatial extension Jaspa. Both projects are open source, freely available software developed by the corresponding author of this paper.\ud \ud Currently, there is no spatial DBMS that implements a rule-based topology engine (considering that the topology rules are designed and performed in the spatial backend). If the topology rules are applied in the frontend (as in many GIS desktop programs), ArcGIS is the most advanced solution. The system presented in this paper has several major advantages over the ArcGIS approach: it can be extended with new topology rules, it has a much wider set of rules, and it can mix feature attributes with topology rules as filters. In addition, the topology rule system can work with various DBMSs, including PostgreSQL, H2 or Oracle, and the logic is performed in the spatial backend.\ud \ud The proposed topology system allows users to check the complex spatial relationships among features (from one or several spatial layers) that require some complex cartographic datasets, such as the data specifications proposed by INSPIRE in Europe and the Land Administration Domain Model (LADM) for Cadastral data.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version