Understanding the influence of environmental factors and human activities on fire occurrence in rural areas is of considerable interest in order to facilitate effective prevention strategies. The newly named Natural Area of Sierra Nevada (both a National and Natural Park) is one of the larger areas of environmental and tourism interest in Spain and includes, among other areas, much of Granada Alpujarra and Almería Alpujarra and the outskirts of the principal ski resort. These areas receive each year thousands of visitors of different kinds (sports, cultural, etc.) which, together with other factors, clearly influence the impact and the possibility of fire occurrence. This paper presents a selection of the factors which have the greatest influence on the probability of a fire occurrence and uses a multivariate statistical technique that considers as influential variables several selected factors of environmental type, factors of human type, factors of land holdings type, etc.

The optimal development and survival of certain animal and plant species has sometimes been used as a sustainability indicator regarding environmental health or quality in a given territory. In this sense, the number of endemic species is an important indicator of proper environmental conservation. In this paper we study the relationship between the number of endemic plants and certain environmental variables related to human and economic development in various European countries. A statistical study was carried out using spatial analysis techniques to establish an explanatory model of the number of plant species endemic to each country analyzed and to provide an overview of the information recorded in the European Union.

The management of urban solid waste is a growing priority both in large cities and in rural settings, and in developed and developing countries. Many factors can influence the type and amount of waste generated, including population density, level of industrialisation, quality of life of households, type of area (urban/rural) and local climate. In this paper, we introduce an index of solid waste recycling over a ten-year period and examine the influence of several such factors on this index. A descriptive and spatial analysis reveals significant differences by region; thus, the values of the recycling indicators are higher in northern Spain than in the south. In this respect, a clear progression was observed during the study decade. Using panel data analysis, a balanced model with fixed effects is fitted to explain the waste recycling index, and the factors that significantly influence this index are identified. The method presented in this paper could subsequently be extrapolated for application to other areas or regions.

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The problem of noise levels in the home is of increasing interest for reasons of health and psychological well-being, among others. This study analyses in detail the meta-data compiled in the Spanish Census of Population and Housing, which provided data on a large number of environmental variables, including noise pollution in the home. A geostatistical study is conducted from the data provided by the latter survey, in which spatial autocorrelation is measured by analytical techniques by using R statistical software and the ESRI geographic information system. We study the empirical variogram, analize different theoretical models (gaussian, exponential and spherical) and estimate the parameters from different perspectives: constant or linear trend, weighted least squares, maximum likelihood and restricted maximum likelihood. The noise level is estimated through the kriging interpolation technique, using the different parameters of each model.