Uploaded on 2014-11-19 by AlejandroPC

[1]: https://edxuploads.s3.amazonaws.com/14164314478633923.jpg These two pictures show the port of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (It´s called La Luz), the city where I live in. The canary archipelago is a group of seven small Islands in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. The port is related to three kinds of "stocks and flows" which are fundamental elements of our economy: The consumer goods. Here, we import most of our consumer goods: from food to electronic devices, from furniture to clothes or fuel, etc. We don't have industry enough for self sufficiency, so the port is the main gate for the entrance of consumer goods (it's even more important than the local airport) The tourism. Tourism is maybe the main money income for the archipelago. The Canary Islands are well known, all around the world, as a first class tourist destination. More than ten millions of tourists visit these islands every year (more than 12 millions on 2013). This means a huge flow of population who influences on local economy, environmental balance, traffic, water and energy consumption, etc. Most of the tourists arrive to the islands by plane, but in the last five years there has been a significant increase in cruise tourism. Every weekend, more than six thousand tourists arrive to the “La Luz” port to visit Gran Canaria island, and it happens in a similar way in the rest of the archipelago. The global market of stocks. Due to its strategic situation, between Africa, south of Europe and America, the Canary Islands' ports have became important keys for the global transport of consumer goods. The "La Luz" port is globally known because of its container area. The port can store more than a million of containers, most of them are no related to local consumption; many international shipping companies use this port for transhipment of containers. They containers arrive, stay in the port and finally are transported to different places around the world. In the last decades, the “La Luz” port has increased its surface. The port authorities have built new docks for ships and cruises, and new platforms for containers. Of course, they have been built over the sea. I think this kind of infrastructures are crucial for local economies. The tourism and the global transport of consumption goods are good examples of stocks and flows of a city (or a territory) in terms of money, population and supplies consumption. But it's very important to keep the balance between the development of these infrastructures and the way they impact in the local environment.