The GeoScenario: A Methodological Resource From Problem-Based Learning (PBL) in Landscape Teaching

Characterizing The Geographical Scenario

The geographical scenario (geoscenario) is here presented as a teaching resource in landscape teaching that may be defined as the minimal significant landscape framework unit that embodies a synthetic representation of a real-world acute issue involving a particular geographical problem (García de la Vega, 2015). This unit must contain geographical elements in a relevant number to be significantly expressive features to delimit a landscape framework. These features need to be identified in order to understand the links inherent in the landscape. Analyzing these links may lead to a recognition of the geographical events. A geographical event is considered the resulting effect of a particular natural process or/and cultural action on the landscape. The geoscenario provides a real landscape setting for geographical analysis and interpretation.

To illustrate this definition of geoscenario, a real landscape setting is presented below for geographical analysis and interpretation. This scenario is based on a satellite photograph taken from the NASA spatial station in the space. This view is one of the few images having earth features that can be recognized from satellite space. This scenario shows the acute issue of an extensive horticultural exploitation in plastic greenhouses along a vast coastal territory in Andalusia, Southern Spain (Figure 1). This striking photograph of the vast extension of white hoods that are distributed along the Gulf of Almería shows how Campo de Dalías has become a peculiar phenomenon on the Almeria coast, being covered in plastic patches. Based on a study on horticulture in greenhouses (Pulido Bosch et al., 2000), Almería is estimated to have more than 30,000 hectares devoted to fruit and vegetable production under greenhouses permanently, both with plastic and with glass. Around 70,000 hectares are distributed throughout Spain, the second country in the world for “overcast” extension, only behind China, with 82,000 hectares. This geoscenario brings the problem of the outstanding increasing proportion of plastic-greenhouse hectares in a relatively small and delimited area into sharp focus, resulting in lack of nutrients and overexploitation of water resources in an area of very poor annual rainfall that demands intensive water pumping.

Figure 1.

Geoscenario of Dalías plastic sea (Campo de Dalías, Almería, Spain). Source: NASA, 2014