Abstract Spain has a great variety of metallic and industrial rock and mineral deposits, as well as important energy and water resources. Within the European Union it has a pre-eminent position, being the country with the highest level of production of raw materials for its own use (Table 19.1 ). Spain is a first-rank producer of several non-metallic minerals such as celestite, sodium sulphate, magnesite, potassium and sepiolite, and ornamental rocks such as granite and marble. There are huge quarrying operations currently active in gypsum, clays, slate and aggregate. Spanish ores include examples of world-class deposits such as Almadén, by far the largest mercury deposit in the world, and the Iberian Pyritic Belt with its giant and supergiant massive sulphide deposits that include the world’s largest at Rio Tinto. Exploration programmes developed in the 1990s have resulted in the discovery of new deposits, both in already active mining districts (e.g. Migollas, Aguas Teñidas, Las Cruces and Los Frailes in the Pyritic Belt, and new mercury reserves in Almadén) and in new areas (e.g. El Valle-Carl és for gold, Aguablanca for nickel). However, despite the large reserves of metallic minerals that exist in the country, mining is only currently active for copper, mercury, gold and zinc (Table 19.2 ). One legacy of the long mineral exploitation history in Spain results from the fact that, before the 1980s, environmental damage was considered to be an inevitable consequence of the extractive Spanish mining industry. This has produced many environmental problems associated with