Land Use Change on Tenerife

Download Worksheet 'Tenerife' (.rft) for use in class. Find here the HTML version of the worksheet.

Objectives:

The Canary island of Tenerife is a popular destination for Central Europeans since decades. But by this mass tourism the land use on Tenerife changed widely. The changes arose however not everywhere and not equally strong, there are regions with intensified land use change and parts of the island, where hardly no change occured.

Didactical comment:

Tourist areas
Tourist areas on Tenerife
Source: Landsat

Solution of Worksheet 'Land Use Change on Tenerife'

1. Mark on the above image the areas where land use change is most visible when comparing the classifications of 1978 and 2002 (see: landuse-c04-p02.html).

The students should compare here two land use classifications of Tenerife. On the worksheet something similar to this should be seen:

2. What could be the reasons for these changes? Follow especially the progress of development:

Main cause of the rapid changes of land use is tourism. With this, the following is connected: the expansion of cities and/or structural changes (hotel, infrastructure) connected with tourism, growth of urban regions, abandonment of unprofitable agricultural occupations.

The main changes can be found in the three tourist centers of the island and at the coasts. In the area of the Teide volcano, hardly any change occured due to the relief, soil and vegetation conditions, the accessibility and the missing interest of the visitors.


Download Worksheet 'Tenerife' (.rft) for use in class. Find here the HTML version of the worksheet.