URBAN LANDSCAPE QUALITY AND FACTORS THAT HAVE INFLUENCE ON LANDSCAPE QUALITY IN LATGALE REGION

The paper deals with urban landscape individualities in the cities and towns of Latgale region. Also show facilities and methods of integrated assessment of urban landscape quality. Article provides information about specifics of urban landscape and factors, that have influence on landscape quality. The paper presents the results of Daugavpils and Rēzekne urban landscape quality complex assessment, that have been realised in 2003- 2005. This results don’t establish significant disparities between quality of urban landscape among Daugavpils and Rēzekne. This method of urban landscape assessment makes possible to get believeable and precise information about landscapes quality

Urban Development Trends In The Latgale Region At The Beginning Of The 21st Century

The paper provides a comprehensive analysis of urban development trends in the Latgale region, observed at the beginning of the 21st century and to a large extent also outlines the direction of future development. The paper is based on the evaluation of spatial development planning documents,the analysis of the available statistical data and the review of the urban development projects subject to implementation, supplemented by some results of field studies on the urban environment quality. Though the urban environment and partly also the landscape quality has been improved during the last period, as well as in many areas with support of the EU programmes major urban environment development projects are being implemented, however the economic growth is stalling, depopulation processes are not contained, and the regional urban development index is expressly negative. In the course of the administrative and territorial reform the status of the majority of towns and cities of the Latgale region has significantly changed, and sustainable urban development in the region is still under real threat

TOPONYMS AND NAMES OF HISTORICAL PERSONS IN THE PRESENT-DAY URBANONYMS OF LATGALE REGION

Entire set of names presented in the urban area is considered to be urbanonyms – these are the names of address objects (streets, squares, etc.) and the names of other urban objects (parks, hillforts, markets, cemeteries, etc.), as well as the names of separate urban housing estates – both offi cially approved by the authorities and arbitrarily nominated by the population. Urbanonyms are featuring originality of geographical location and particularity of topographical environment of the town or the city, displaying cultural and historical realities, and opening ideological statements of the epoch. In the towns and cities of Latgale during the initial period of formation of the streets, naming thereof has been closely linked to the immediate perception of urban environment and has been taking place spontaneously, by the system of urbanonyms representing territorial features of terrain, type of land use, landscapes and hydrographic network. Urbanonyms in the same way are describing the elements and the most important objects of the urban social and economic infrastructure, for that reason they very often appear also in street names of the towns and cities. The most widely used urbanonym in Latgale is represented by Skolas (School) street, which is found in 13 towns and cities of Latgale region, as the most popular urbanonyms also Baznīcas (Church) (in 10 towns and cities), Parka (Park) and Tirgus (Market) streets (in 9 towns and cities), Dzirnavu (Mill) and Stacijas (Station) streets (in 8 towns and cities) have to be mentioned. Over the 20th century, ideological strata of different powers have had an increasingly high impact on the urbanonyms, for example, more and more frequent naming the streets after notable historic persons or events, in the same way urbanonyms have had to promote emergence of connotations beneficial to the existing power. It is likewise understandable, since urbanonyms are affecting views with regard to the surrounding world of urban residents already since their childhood. It is established that urbanonyms "are the language segment, where ideology of each power is expressed in the most pronounced way” (Balode 2008) and "urbanonyms are national symbols – the same as flag and anthem” (Питкевич 2007). The research is aimed to provide extended characteristics of the Latgale urbanonyms, encompassing all the 14 towns and cities of the Latgale planning region (Balvi, Dagda, Daugavpils, Ilūkste, Kārsava, Krāslava, Līvāni, Ludza, Preiļi, Rēzekne, Subate, Viļaka, Viļāni, Zilupe), as well as Varakļāni belonging to the cultural and historical region of Latgale. Topicalities of the studies of urbanonyms and issues related to their definition and classification are also being dealt with. In-depth analysis is being provided for the use of various categories of place-names or toponyms in contemporaneous urbanonyms of Latgale, trying to reveal also geographical regularities of their selection. Concurrently also various aspects of perpetuation of the memory of historical persons in the street names are discussed – both those reflecting cultural and historical realities of the region and those imposed by ideological settings of different powers. Toponyms are of major importance in street names of the towns and the cities of Latgale – their totality amounts to 132 units, but their frequency of names – 208. Toponyms constitute 17.1 % of total number of the object address names. 81 toponyms or 63.3 % from their total numbers are related to Latgale region, but according to their frequency major proportion is made by names of other Latvian towns and cities. The most frequent toponyms among urbanonyms in Latgale include: Latgale (9 nominations), Rīga (8 nominations), Rēzekne (7 nominations), Daugavpils, Ludza, Jelgava (6 nominations), Vidzeme, Liepāja (5 nominations). In the urbanonyms of Latgale anthroponyms are used significantly less than toponyms, for example, names of historical persons in Latgale are represented only by 84 denominations that make up 6.9 % of their totality. Notwithstanding the fact that after the Republic of Latvia regained its national independence, in many places change of the urbanonyms ideologically unacceptable for the new power has been taking place, the urbanonyms of Latgale still have maintained a comparatively large number of imprints of Soviet ideology - in particular it is typical for Daugavpils as the largest city in the region. Perpetuation into urbanonyms of the names of famous native residents once having lived in particular town or city should be particularly encouraged, thus maintaining live memory of the urban cultural and historical heritage, and also inculcating the feelings of patriotism into townspeople. Urbanonyms with immediate link to the geographical environment, and cultural and historical realities of the territory are providing assistance in highlighting particularity of the region, strengthening historical memory of the socium and promoting a sense of belonging to one’s own place of residence. The article has been developed within the framework of the ESF project No.2009/0227/1DP/1.1.1.2.0/09/APAI/VIAA/071 “Linguo-culturological and Socio- economic Aspects of Territorial Identity in the Development of the Region of Latgale”

ECOLOGICAL EXPEDITION AS EFFECTIVE FORM OF ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH AND ECOLOGICAL EDUCATION

The paper deals with ecological expedition as effective form of environmental research and ecological education. Since 1997 Rēzekne Higher education institution organizes ecological expeditions for study programme “Environmental engineering” students in the Eastern Latvia region. Students realize integrated assessment of environmental quality with different methods. Article summarize experience of 10- years long period. Also show main goals and tasks of ecological expeditions, describe field research methods and cameral processing of data

URBANIZATION PROCESSES AND ITS SPECIFICS IN LATGALE

Urbanization is an important demo-geographical process and a complex social phenomenon under impact of which changes are made not only to the global, regional or national settlement systems, but all socio-economic processes are also substantially transformed. Changes caused by urbanization have an impact on traditional way of life, cultural particularity, community and individual psychology and other aspects of spiritual life, therefore expressions and regularities of this process might be of interest not only for demographers, geographers and economists, but also for representatives of the field of humanities.Paper presents the progress of urbanization processes in Latgale, by covering the period from establishment of the first urban-type settlements in the Eastern Latvia until today, when under impact of the depopulation processes number of inhabitants in all cities of the region decreases dramatically. Particular attention is paid to the course of formation and evolution of the Latgale urban network, successively looking at characteristics of the course of urbanization process during all major stages of the historical process.Towns and cities constitute the basis for the Latvian population system, characterized by historically formed relatively dense urban network. Like elsewhere in the country, also in modern Latgale towns and cities are distributed evenly throughout the region area, but historically it has not always been so. Urban spatial and landscape model in Latgale has been developed within the long historical process of gradual accumulation of changes in the landscape space; however the balance of this process is destroyed by sudden transformations of political, economic and socio-cultural conditions the region and its people have had to survive in more than one occasion.The article particularly deals with characteristics of the urbanization processes during post-Soviet period, outlines the present urban development trends in Latgale, and highlights major urban demo-geographical problems, among which the emphasis has to be placed on the rapid depopulation, an ageing population and the deepening of territorial inequalities, also intra-regionally.Structural economical changes and increasing mobility of population during the post- Soviet period have changed the urban development perspective. Activities based on new knowledge are concentrated in large agglomerations, while individual regions, including Latgale, with less competitive urban centers are noticeably lagging behind in their development.Therefore, exactly in these areas and localities it is necessary to strengthen the urban functions to impede also interregional migration of population, since it substantially restricts the functionality of the most remote and underdeveloped areas and hinders provision of services to population at an appropriate level. This is even more important since implementation of the cohesion principles has been proclaimed to be one of the cornerstones of the European Union regional policy.Unfortunately, at least for the time being situation in urban areas of Latgale is far from encouraging - negative net migration and negative natural growth factor, persistently high level of unemployment is observed there, social exclusion and apathy prevailing. Admittedly, in recent years urban development in Latgale represents also several positive trends. Urban environmental quality has improved significantly, which is generally associated with transition to environmentally more friendly fuels and implementation of various environmental projects, based on funding from the EU budget, such as municipal waste management, improving of water supply and sewerage systems.Encouragingly, facilities of regional higher education institutions improve, and the capacity of scientific work increases, important interdisciplinary research has been launched. In the nearest future significant educational and scientific infrastructure improvement projects at the University of Daugavpils and Rezekne Higher Education Institution are planned to be made, which will certainly increase competitiveness of the Latgale region in the science and technology area.Article is based on review of comprehensive scientific literature and analysis of available statistical information. The author does not claim to provide all-inclusive and in-depth analysis of the urbanization processes in Latgale, since this task would be performed in course of further studies, but summarizes the results obtained at an early stage of research of urban areas and population demo-geographical development, as well as of the quality of urban environment

POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS FOR PREVIOUS LIVANU BIOCHEMICAL FACTORY TERRITORY RECONSTRUCTION

This article summarizes and analyzes the available information about previous Livanu Biochemical factory current situation and offer opportunity for reconstruction solutions. On-site done therritorial condition determation- air and soil quality testing. Based on gained information, developed three possibilities about therritorial reconstruction solutions

EVALUATION OF THE POSSIBILITIES OF REVITALIZATION OF THE AUCIEMA FARM IN THE DEGRADED AREA

Title article “Evaluation of the possibilities of revitalization of the Auciems farm in the degraded territory” The aim of the article is to survey the information about the degraded territory of the former Auciems village farm, to assess their current condition, to evaluate the possibilities of restoration and to offer a possible alternative for cleaning up the territory. During the development of the article, the concept of brownfields and the causes of their formation were considered. An on-site assessment of the condition of the facility was surveyed

SURFACE WATER IMPACT ON A LARGE LUDZAS LAKE

The theme. Surface water impact on a Large Ludzas Lake. Problem statement. It is not known – what the lake surface water pollution affects the quality of the Lake Large Problems actuality. Ludza region data on the Lake Large Ludzas quality are not completely

COMPLEX ASSESSMENT OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY OF THE FORMER PETROL STATION TERRITORY IN JEKABPILS CITY AND POSSIBLE REVITALISATION SOLUTIONS

The paper presents the results of the investigation and the environmental assessment of the degraded territory, namely, the former petrol station in Jekabpils city. During the research development, the information on the degraded territory, territorial planning of the city and possible territory revitalization measures was gathered. The assessment of the degraded territory and its objects and the chemical analysis of soil samples has been conducted, possible revitalization solutions of the degraded territory in accordance with the territorial planning of the city and the estimated costs were analyzed and proposed. The paper contains photographs of the degraded territory under study and its cartographic location in Jekabpils city

FOREST FERTILIZATION WITH WOOD ASH AND AMMONIUM NITRATE IMPACT ON BIOGENIC ELEMEMENT MOVEMENT OF SOIL WATER

The work describes impact of the complex soil fertilization with ammonium nitrate and wood ash on the forest water in Myrtillosa mel. The paper provides information and results about chemical element migration in Myrtillosa mel soil and precipitation water