Inventarisation of Hungarian landmarks - online cultural-natural landscape database development for landscape planners

In recent years, the protection of unique landscape features, cultural heritage, cultural and historical landscapes has received increased attention. Landscape elements and unique landscape features, landmarks relating to traditional farming, landscape structure, and cultural history are either rapidly perishing or have already partly disappeared altogether. Hungary is still extremely rich in unique landscape features or values but there is no overall, standardised and accessible source of such kind of information for landscape planners, developers, decision makers or for tourism experts. The overall objective of this project is the database development of a comprehensive Cadastre of Landscape Features (TÉKA) that contributes to the preservation of the country’s cultural heritage. Hungarian authorities and organizations do already have databases that could be potentially connected to the Database of Unique Landscape Features (like Institute of Geodesy, Cartography and Remote Sensing, National Office of Cultural Heritage, National Parks). These separate data sets are, however, incomplete, fragmented (territorial coverage, detailedness) and have many overlaps. The goal of this project is to develop a standardised online metadatabase for integrating the various available data from different sources

The Potential Impact of Greening as a Directed Land Use on the Landscape Structure

The intensification of agricultural landscapes significantly sped up in the 20th century. The European Union created the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) with the objective of securing the productivity, the biodiversity and the ecological stability of agricultural landscapes. A new measure in the 2014 CAP Reform is “greening”. Its goal is to support agricultural activities which are beneficial to the climate and environment as well as to protect landscape elements which are important for ecosystems. The impact of this measure on the landscape structure is unpredictable. In this study, we compare the earlier legislation to the current greening provisions in order to confirm whether the new measure is a step forward in maintaining biodiversity. Afterwards, we examine the greening process of an agriculture-dominated sample area in Hungary, and we draw conclusions regarding the events in the first half year of greening

Connectivity Analysis for Green Infrastructure Restoration Planning on National Level

The green infrastructure idea has getting more and more importance in the last years research papers and planning guidelines (Rouse & Bunster-Ossa, 2013) (EEA, 2011). According to one of the first definition green infrastructure (GI) is an interconnected network of waterways, wetlands, woodlands, wildlife habitats, and other natural areas, greenways, parks and other conservation lands, farms, ranches and forests, wilderness areas and other open spaces that support native species, maintain natural ecological processes, sustain air and water resources and contribute to the health and quality of life (Benedict & McMahon, 2000). According to the European Union’s approach green infrastructure is not just a network, but on broader scale it is a theory addressing, the connectivity of ecosystems, their protection and the provision of ecosystem services, while also addressing mitigation and adaptation to climate change (EEA, 2011). It also emphasize that GI is a strategically planned network of natural and semi-natural areas with other environmental features designed and managed to deliver a wide range of ecosystem services, which incorporates green spaces and other physical features in terrestrial areas. (European Commission, 2013). Strategical studies (European Commission, 2014b) draw attention to the importance of restoration and connectivity planning

Hátrányos helyzetű társadalmi csoportok az információs társadalomban

A tanulmány a 2005 novemberi Információs Társadalom Szakmai Napokon elhangzott előadás kibővített változata. A szerzők három hátrányos helyzetű csoport – az idősek, a roma származásúak és a kistelepülésen élők – médiafogyasztását és az internethez való viszonyát vizsgálják a World Internet Project adatai alapján. Az elemzés tapasztalataiból kiindulva amellett érvelnek, hogy az egyes társadalmi csoportok felzárkóztatásához pontosan meghatározott egyedi fejlesztési programokra van szükség az IKT területén

Tájindikátorok alkalmazása a tájképvédelmi területek lehatárolására és a tájkarakter meghatározására

A Kárpát-medence Európa egyik jellegzetes, kulturális és természeti adottságokban gazdag sokszínű térsége. A globalizációval, a beépítés növekedésével, a környezetszennyezés fokozódásával azonban a hazai tájakat, tájképet is az átalakulás veszélye fenyegeti. A hagyományos tájkép megőrzése, a jellegzetes tájkarakter fejlesztése komplex feladat, és a különböző szakterületek összefogását követeli meg. A tájkép, mint vizuális természeti erőforrás rendszerint nem jelenik meg a különböző ágazati tervekben. A tájképpel, mint „korlátlanul rendelkezésre álló” erőforrással nem gazdálkodtak. A gazdasági-, gazdaságossági számításokba, a beruházások hatáselemzéseibe, a terület- és településrendezési tervekbe, a vizuális környezetet érintő legtöbb döntésbe nem került be a tájképet módosító hatások vizsgálata. A tájkép ugyanakkor mint gazdasági erőforrás, felértékelődik, és egyre inkább hangsúlyt kap. A hagyományos tájkép megőrzése, a jellegzetes tájkarakter fejlesztése a tájtervezés, a műemlékvédelem, az építészet, az üdülés-idegenforgalom és a környezettervezés egyre fontosabb területévé válik. A tájkép elődeink hosszantartó évezredes tájformáló tevékenysége, munkája során alakult. A táj (kultúrtáj) szerkezete, karaktere mindenkor lenyomata, tükrözője a megelőző korok tájhasználatának. A jelenkori táj (és annak vizuális megjelenése, a tájkép) történeti folyamatok eredményeképpen jött létre. Megőrzése és fejlesztése nemcsak gazdasági érdek, hanem a nemzeti örökség védelmét, az identitástudat megőrzését, a lokálpatriotizmust is jelenti. A látvány (a táj és a tájkép) olyan köztulajdon, nemzeti kincs, amelynek vizsgálatával, értékelésével, védelmével, fejlesztésének kérdéseivel tudományos szinten is szükséges foglalkozni. Az értékelés, védelem, jogi szabályozás jelenlegi hiánya miatt a látvány, a tájkép az egyik legrohamosabban pusztuló környezeti erőforrás

Assessment Matrix Based Evaluation of Ecosystem Services in Relation to Land Use Change Scenarios

The ecosystem services are natural assets and services, which are used by humans directly or indirectly over their respective lifetimes (MEA, 2005). Several authors and organizations describe these goods of nature in different ways. Some authors use ecological concepts as the basis for categorization (Norberg, 1999), others concentrate on different human needs (Wallace, 2007), however the most common categories are based on some functional distinction (MEA, 2005; de Groot, 2006; Hein et al., 2006). Authors representing this latter group usually mention the following classification: provisioning, regulating, supporting and cultural services. The provisioning services like water, wood or timber are used directly by people. The regulating services are climate regulation, water purification and other similar processes. The cultural services are for example education, recreation potential and spiritual inspiration. The supporting services ensure the clear functioning of the three groups, for example soil formation and photosynthesis (MEA, 2005). The methodology of valuing ecosystem services is an effective decision support tool, because this highlights the natural, social and economic values of the goods and services of the living system for decision-making and planning. Despite the availability of a wide range of valuation methods (Chen et al., 2009; Kiss et al., 2012), there are still unresolved issues (de Groot et al., 2010). Its important elements are revealing the spatial characterization and the dynamics of the landscape and ecosystem services, for which there are effective methods among the dynamically developing GIS analysis tools. This usually does not create a comprehensive inventory of all the ecosystem services, but analysis several selected services in detail, primarily in context with the potentials and land use changes (Willemen et al., 2008). One of the most promising methods of ecosystem services valuation is the assessment matrix, a great advantage of the method is that it can be aggregated at the landscape-level (Burkhard et al., 2009). The major account of the processing and analysis of the historical maps is that allows of understanding of the past human land use, the long-term landscape changes and the dynamics of the landscape. The knowledge of the past also contributes to the exploration of the main driving forces and use them to anticipate the future changes (Swetnam et al., 2011). Modeling of future land use change is proved to be a very efficient method among many types of landscape change analysis (Pontius et al., 2001; Goldstein et al., 2004; Kline et al., 2007), and a frequent tool in climate change analysis (IPCC, 2007), land use planning (Xiang & Clarke, 2003), conservation planning (Osvaldo et al., 2000) and recently it has been increasingly used in the assessment of the ecosystem services (MEA, 2005). The evaluation of the ecosystem services and the modeling of the future land use changes have an increasing role in regional politics. The consistency between these two topics would be a very important step forward (Estoque et al., 2012). In this study we describe an assessment framework of ecosystem services analysis in a pilot area of Southwest-Hungary called Nagyberek, used to be the largest swampy bay of Lake Balaton. The method using GIS analysis of historic maps and recent land cover dataset explores the main land use types. It concentrates also on those driving forces which are directly influenced by the land use of the area. We plan three future land use scenarios based on the main driving forces, with the help of the CLUE-S (Verburg et al., 2002), the integrated land use modeling tool. We select and assess a certain part of the ecosystem services according to the Burkhard’s study (2009), their trends, with the help of the assessment matrix

Garden Heritage – new perspectives in Hungarian Tourism Strategy

Garden visitation has been a tourism motivator for many years on international context, and can now be enjoyed in many different forms. According to international researches, garden tourism is the second largest tourism sector after food tourism, with a third of tourists globally including at least one garden visit in their travel itinerary. Garden tourism encompasses botanical gardens, arboreta, zoological gardens, city parks, flower shows, garden centres and increasingly tours of historic gardens and estates. Garden tourists to these types of attractions and events significantly give local economies a boost in many ways. Beside their economic and health benefits, garden tourism contribute to the environmental and cultural education of visitors, enhancing the importance of gardens in everyday life. In this context the historic gardens, and especially the castle garden ensembles, plays a leading role. The study shows the possible contribution of the Hungarian castle garden ensembles to the national tourism development strategies. The high number of castle gardens with heritage values, their compositional diversity and geographical location makes the castle gardens to be the main target garden group used by the garden tourism. The study give an overview of a comprehensive garden inventory methodology - with historic survey, investigation of current conditions, analyzis of garden values and attractions and formulation of strategic recommendations. The conclusions drawn from the historical review and survey provide a good basis for the protection and to dissemination of this complex heritage and to use it as a cultural basis and background for future touristic developments, with an emphasis on their current and future educational role

Comprehensive identification of ecologically important areas in Zhengzhou, China

Ecosystem services include the direct and indirect contributions of ecosystems to human well-being and survival, which are important factors that maintain and influence the ecological environment of humans, animals, and plants. Identification of ecological source areas is the first step for mapping high-quality ecological networks, ensuring urban ecological security, and improving the ecosystem service functions. Zhengzhou City is located in the central region of China, and is the core transportation hub of the country. In recent decades, Zhengzhou has accumulated a series of ecological problems in the dramatic urbanization development, such as the destruction of natural resources, environmental pollution, and biological species reduction. Ecological conservation is an urgent need for Zhengzhou. Based on the ecosystem services theory, we selected biodiversity maintenance function, habitat quality, water conservation, and soil conservation as key ecological impact factors to comprehensively evaluate the ecosystem service functions of the study area. By using GIS spatial analysis tool, the InVEST habitat quality model, and spatial connectivity analysis, we can implement the integrated identification of ecological source areas on a large scale. After superimposing the evaluation of ecological factors, the results show that the most important source areas are primarily distributed in the southwest of Zhengzhou. The proportion of ecological sources in Zhengzhou is relatively small, with an area of about 711.16km2, accounting for only 9.3% of Zhengzhou. Most of them have already been protected as forest parks or nature reserve by the government, while some sources like sections of Yellow River which are close to main urban area are facing development pressure. The ecological corridors in the urban area mostly are based on water system like Jinshui river, Xiliu Lake, and Longzi Lake that can connect green open space in the main urban area and natural green space outside