Multitemporal analysis of land use and land cover changes in Mediterranean area by integrating information from European data-bases, remote sensing and local surveys.

The Mediterranean agriculture is characterized by suboptimal conditions for cultivation (shallow soils, steep slopes and a dry summer) which can change even over short distances and limit consequently the range of alternative choices available for farmers (Caraveli, 2000). The objective of this thesis is to analyze the agricultural system dynamics in four countries (Portugal, Spain, France and Italy) by processing data at the highest spatial scale (municipalities). In order to reduce the influence of social and economic factors, we decided to focus our study on the Western part of the Mediterranean area where we develop and test different methodologies to highlight general and local trends.This survey was carried out at the most detailed level, in order to obtain an accurate picture of the situation and to identify the trajectories drawn a 10-year span period.