University of Valencia logo Logo Master's Degree in Remote Sensing Logo del portal

The real estate boom seen from five satellites

  • March 10th, 2017
Image de la noticia

It has been about a month since Google launched on the Internet the enhanced version of its tool ‘Google Earth Timelapse’. This new application allows users to travel all around the world throughout the last thirty years with a time-lapse built of more than five million photographs.

The Spanish real estate boom:

The application allows us to know in detail the real estate boom our country has lived in the past decade. It is interesting seeing how some Spanish cities, such as Benidorm, have double their size and built without any restriction.

Currently, this city in Alicante is the town with more skyscrapers in our country. Its touristic attraction has caused that in the last 50 years its inhabitants have increased from 6.200 (1960) to more than 66.000 (2016). Moreover, a 30% of them are foreigners, and in vacation periods they reach 100.000 inhabitants.

 

 

Other prominent towns are Salou or Torremolinos. This town, annexed to the city of Malaga until 1988, was one of the main destinations chosen by sun-and-beach tourists. Its growth since the 60s is exponential. But it is from the 90s decade when the construction shot up.

 

 

Other places of interest:

 In addition to showing us the rise of building in our country, 'Google Earth Timelapse' also allows us to observe the ravages caused by the climate change in the planet:

- The ice melt of the Columbia glacier (Alaska):

When the British explorers discovered it in 1794, it extended to the north edge of Heather Island, close to the mouth of Columbia Bay. The glacier kept that position until 1980, when it started a quick regression. In the time-lapse it can bee seen the speed at which the glacier is recoiling.