Urban-rural spatial transect: socio-territorial processes in depopulated Spain: the Tiétar Valley case study

The factors of imbalance that have led to a significant process of depopulation in a large part of Spain are extremely complex and result in a plurality of situations and problems. Through the use of the analytical method of the spatial transect, the aim of this research is to establish a framework of knowledge of this complexity that integrates multiple territorial variables, from the arrangement of elements to the consequent topology. The paper focuses on the spatial component of these variables, which determines both the present functionality of the territory (mobility, provision of services) and the orientation of the process towards more or less desirable possible futures. The method is implemented in a case study, the Valley of the Ti & eacute;tar river, in the south of the province of & Aacute;vila, a region whose demographic weakness has been aggravated in recent decades and has been subject to processes of spatial rebalancing. The transect method allows both the monitorization of the alterations in the heterogeneity of the territory and, through a hermeneutic reading of the landscape, the understanding of the processes underway, also claiming the river basin of the case study as a functional territorial unit.