DEMOGRAPHIC ANALYSIS IN THE NATIONAL ATLAS OF SPAIN BY MEANS OF GRAVITATIONAL MODELS

A. Pueyo1, J.L. Calvo1, M. Zuсiga1, M. Sebastian1, J.M. Jover1, P. Sanchez-Ortiz2, C. Romera2

1 - University of Zaragoza, Spain

2 - National Geographic Institute, Spain

smas@fomento.es

 

One of the more developed scientific tendencies in the last decades has been the transposition of formulations among branches of knowledge. This is the event of the gravitational studies, that derive from the Newtonian assumption of the universal attraction of the bodies. Its simplicity and rigor for the prediction and valuation have caused that its application to the demographic analysis was extrapolated.

Traditionally the representation of the demographic information in a territory were bound to a concrete space with a static or precise distribution, with the application of these gravitational models to the demographic variables it changes to a continuous representation of flows that help to explain many behaviours taking place in the modern societies tied to the new concept of life basins. It must not forget that human resources play and suppose a principal role, as much as population and equipment acquire the protagonist of the territorial plans using, for the first time, maps of tied population that allow to identify life basins.

For that reason, when the elaboration of the demographic analysis for the National Atlas of Spain was approached, it has considered the incorporation of these models necessary to be able to understand the territorial and social transformations that have taken place in Spain in the last thirty five years.

This communication displays some results of this work in period 1970-2005, as well as different methods of analysis and representation in which models of demographic potentials for determined periods, weighted variations of population potential or demographic changes of municipalities taking care of its population variation and its variation of gravitational attraction, are combined.