THE IMPACT OF LAND USE DYNAMICS ON THE SOIL EROSION IN THE PANCHNOI RIVER BASIN, NORTHEAST INDIA

Land use (LU) dynamics and its relation to the accelerated soil erosion phenomenon in two broad geomorphic divisions of the Panchnoi River basin of Northeast India have studied. The present study was based on the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE). To measure the impact of the LU dynamics on soil erosion, the basin was divided into two broad geomorphic divisions, i.e., plain zone and hilly zone, and the rate of soil erosion has been estimated separately for both of the geomorphic divisions. It has been found that in the plain zone, LU dynamics significantly accelerated soil erosion—from 0.52 ton/ha/yr in 1990 to 0.94 ton/ha/yr in 2015. Similarly, the vegetation density decreased significantly in the mountainous and hilly zone as the mean Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) value changed from 0.45 in 1990 to 0.35 in 2015, which accelerated soil erosion from 12.06 ton/ha/yr to 18.30 ton/ha/yr from 1990 to 2015. The study indicates that soil erosion may give rise to a severe environmental as well as economic problem in the Panchnoi river basin, which may trigger issues related to the soil fertility of the basin area

HOW DO JOB-RELATED CONSTRUCTS DETERMINE EMPLOYEE TURNOVER? SERBIAN HOTELS EXAMPLE

In the hospitality industry, employee turnover is extremely high. It is often caused by minimal growth opportunities, intensive work, lack of flexibility, limited opportunities for promotion, lack of recognition, etc. Investment in human resources, strategies that maintain an adequate workforce and improve employee engagement is quite justified cost with multiple returns. The specific issue is that hospitality leaders often do not know the relationships between employee satisfaction, employee motivation and employee engagement, which may be the basis for understanding their intention to leave the job. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between the three job-related constructs: motivation, job satisfaction, and work engagement, as well as to examine their impact on employee turnover. The results confirmed a positive relationship between job satisfaction and motivation, satisfaction and work engagement, as well as the relationship between motivation and engagement. On the other side, the results showed that job satisfaction, dedication, and vigor negatively predict employee turnover. The findings may provide hotel managers with a foundation to understand this issue and assume where to direct their research and how to improve job conditions

THE GEOGRAPHY OF SERBIA

The manuscript represents a review of the monograph publication entitled The Geography of Serbia, published by the Geographical Institute ''Jovan Cvijić'' SASA in Belgrade. The aim of the review is to present this significant book to the scientific community, which gathered fifty-six, mainly young researchers who courageously accepted to write the study of special national importance, and include a vast geographical material from physical geography, human geography and related disciplines into a unique whole

GEOECOLOGICAL EVALUATION OF LOCAL SURROUNDINGS FOR THE PURPOSES OF RECREATIONAL TOURISM

The paper presents geoecological evaluation of the city of Loznica for the purposes of sports and recreational tourism based on quantitative method of diversity, V-Wert Method. Using the GIS tool by the quantitative method, the criteria of natural components (relief, forest, water surface and climate) are evaluated for the analyzed area. In the proposed method, the climate factor was supplemented by the analysis of the bioclimatic index Universal Thermal Climate Index (UTCI). When the evaluation was completed, the final results were obtained based on which the degrees of convenience of different parts of the analyzed area have been presented. Out of the total analyzed surface, which amounts to 705 km2, favorable surfaces comprise 21 km2 (2.98%), and very favorable surfaces comprise 33 km2, i.e. 4.68% of the territory. The largest area consists of conditionally favorable terrains — 333 km2 (47.23%). Since one of the basic strategic priorities of the City of Loznica is improvement and development of sports and recreational tourism, the aim of this analysis is to emphasize the potential of the mentioned area in terms of general suitability of the terrain for the development of this type of tourism

APPLICATION OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT PRINCIPLES IN HOTEL BUSINESS

Tourism development, if not sustainable, could threat and affect the environment as an object of tourists’ interest. Accordingly, hotels as a type of tourism organizations within a destination, are trying to involve sustainable business activities in their operations in order to protect the environment. In hotels within developed countries, sustainable activities are already implemented in the business and they are in the balance with the environment. However, implementation of these activities within societies in transition, such as Serbia, is still in initial level, which is confirmed in this research. The subject of this paper is, therefore, oriented toward the business activities of hotels located within Kopaonik, popular destination of winter tourism and National Park of Serbia, and these activities are researched through the employees’ perspective of ecological, socio-cultural and economic principles of the hotel business. Methods used in the paper are: descriptive, comparative, statistical and the critical one. Also, a survey research was conducted for the purpose of the paper and it obtained a sample of 211 hotel employees. The research results explained the current state within the hotel business of Kopaonik related to activities focused on ecological, socio-cultural and economic principles of sustainable development. Also, results indicate the level of employees’ job satisfaction and the level of their job commitment in accordance with hotels’ involvement in sustainable practices. All researched constructs of the paper are interpreted as important aspects of Kopaonik’s sustainability on the tourist market

THE CLIMATE OF A LARGE CITY AND ECOCLINE ORDINATION OF ITS VEGETATION COVER

Large cities generate their own climate, which influences the distribution of vegetation cover and individual species population into separated ecological phytocoenotic zones ecoclines. By the example of urban ecology research conducted in the city of Lviv with a population of about one million inhabitants, the nature of this ecocline ordination has been revealed. It is the result of action of vertical and horizontal gradients on woody plants phytovitality. The manifestation of these changes is increasing scarcity in phytocoenotic structure of vegetation, water deficit in the leaves, ratio distortion of the pigment composition. There are proposed certain methods for assessing the phytovitality of the introduced species. In the I EPhZ suburban forest we deal with the “new” climatope and edaphotope. In the II EPhZ — the park, there is a forest-steppe climatope and edaphotope due to the thin vegetation and a larger area of open spaces. In the III EPhZ — in public gardens where open insolated spaces dominate — there is steppe climatope and edaphotope. In IV EPhZ, where the high dryness of air and soil in streets and squares prevails, there is a desert climatope and edaphotope. In the I, II and III EPhZ soil temperature is always lower than the temperature in the crown, which corresponds to the physiological needs of plants. In IV EPhZ the soil temperature around the tree trunk is higher than the air temperature in the tree crown.

EXTREME PRECIPITATION INDICES IN VOJVODINA REGION (SERBIA)

The evolution of daily extreme precipitation from 1966 to 2013 in Vojvodina Region (Serbia) was investigated. We calculated trends of ten precipitation indices and tested their corresponding significances using the Student’s t-test for seven locations. The obtained results suggest that the climate of the northern and central parts of Vojvodina region becomes wetter in terms of precipitation magnitude and frequency, reflecting the characteristic of the central European regime, while the southernmost part of the region is drier, reflecting the characteristic of the Mediterranean regime. In addition, the results indicate an increase in the amount of precipitation in short time intervals. Positive annual trends are strongly influenced by the significant increase of autumn frequency and intensity of extreme precipitation. According to the correlation between extreme precipitation indices and atmospheric teleconnection patterns, it was found that the NAO has the strongest influence on precipitation intensity indices in spring and winter, while during winter it also affects the frequency of dry conditions. The EAWR pattern has a strong influence on the statistically significant positive autumn trends

TRANSNATIONAL TRANSPORT CORRIDOR OF THE NORTHERN SEA ROUTE BASED ON SABETTA SEAPORT: CHALLENGES OF REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT FOR RUSSIA

The article investigates the opportunity of the development of a new transnational transport corridor on the base of the NSR, which is much shorter and faster than the usual one. The basis of this project is Sabetta seaport, which is considered as a potential transnational transport hub. The authors investigated the opportunities for the development of intermodal terminals and new services/goods for the East-West and North-South international transport corridors. They design this idea on the base of multi-modal transportation approach for the development of a global innovation project of NSR Transnational Transport Corridor. Using classical methods of analysis, they conclude that the port of Sabetta, as well as other ports in the Yamal Peninsula currently does not have direct rail access to the Central Russia regions and it can be good potential for regional development in Ural and Siberia. The research was limited by the official statistics about NSR dynamic of cargo volume. The results of research can provide the development of new multimodal transnational transport corridor and can be the basis of regional development in northern Russian regions. The implementation of the idea can provide a significant amount of new jobs and an enormous amount of international investments. Mainly in international scientific literacy authors examine the question of North Transport corridor by logistic and geographical aspects. The article investigates this question in more complex aspect by a multimodal approach with involvement in the NSR another means of communication like a river, railway and motorway transportation

GNOMONIC TERMS IN THE SERBIAN LANGUAGE

In Serbia, as in many other European countries, there has been a widespread revival of interest in gnomonics in recent decades. An increasing number of sundials and a growing number of publications on gnomonics demonstrate the popularity of sundialling. Accordingly, it is interesting to find out which gnomonic terms are used, when they appeared and how they developed. In Serbia (and the countries formed after the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia), societies of gnomonics enthusiasts do not exist and therefore it is not reasonable to expect any concern intended to preserve gnomonic heritage or the existence of the gnomonic terminological system. This assumption has been confirmed by the analysis of publications in the field of gnomonics published in the Serbian language. Due to unfavorable historical circumstances in the Balkans, Serbian scientific terminology began to form rather late (19th century) and the first gnomonic terms appeared at the beginning of the 20th century. They were introduced in the articles of the Serbian astronomers, professors Milan Nedeljković (1902) and Vojislav V. Mišković (1930; 1932). However, most of these terms have not been preserved. Contemporary gnomonic terminology is multidisciplinary, and when the terms belonging to neighboring sciences are removed, a small number of gnomonic terms remains. Among them, the following four are the key ones: gnomon, gnomonic projection, sundial and gnomonics. In this paper, a modified definition of the most important term — gnomon has been proposed as well as the definitions of all other key gnomonic terms related to it

SAINT GEORGE’S DAY IN THE BALKANS — CUSTOMS AND RITUALS IN BULGARIA, SERBIA AND MACEDONIA

This study gives an insight into the geographical distribution of the customary practices and the inter-cultural exchange between the societies that live in the Balkans. It focuses on finding the similarities and differences in some traditional customs of different nations practiced on St. George’s Day. By examining and comparing practices of Orthodox rural communities of Slavic origin, some representable religious and magical rituals, folklore and traditions incorporated in the festivities dedicated to Saint George in three Balkan countries — Bulgaria, Serbia and Macedonia are presented. The legendary image of the Saint and his characteristics contributed to the numerous and various customs and traditions connected to communal celebrations which can be clearly spotted in the defined geographical area, especially among rural communities. Within parallel existence and interrelationship between Balkan communities and intermingling of nations, the common roots and the development of similar ethnographic heritage, certain overlapping between Bulgaria, Serbia and Macedonia in celebrating St. George’s Day are evident