Soviet era landscape change and the post-Soviet legacy in Latvia

The collectivisation of agriculture and the development and application of land improvement “melioration” programmes and technologies, as well as the construction of kolkhoz centres during the Soviet era in Latvia was extensive and has a legacy on the post-Soviet landscape and agricultural economy. A study of a number of rural municipalities in different landscape types, through the comparison of maps from the early 20th century with those from around 2000, and one example with maps from the 1960s and 1990s, together with field work, revealed the degree of change that had taken place. In particular, there was a significant increase in forest – despite the kolkhoz system being targeted at increasing agricultural outputs, a reduction in the number of farmsteads – in some places this was a result of land battles in the Second World war – and a concentration of residences in villages and widespread drainage of marshes, wetlands and wetter forest. Village centres with concentrations of blocks of flats, storage sheds and industrial units were developed. After 1991 and the restitution of land to the original owners or their descendants, large numbers of kolkhoz agricultural buildings, old estate buildings and some residential blocks became redundant and abandoned. Some of the farmland was also abandoned. The sampled areas show different amounts of landscape change and all showed large numbers of ruined buildings scattered around the area. The question of what to do with these, many of which are robbed of anything useful, vandalised and possibly causing pollution remains open, even after 25 or more years

A multitiered approach for grassland ecosystem services mapping and assessment: The Viva Grass tool

Throughout the second half of the 20th Century, the area of semi-natural grasslands in the Baltic States decreased substantially, due to agricultural abandonment in some areas and intensification in more productive soil types. In order to halt the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services provided by grasslands, the LIFE+ programme funded project, LIFE Viva Grass, aims at developing an integrated planning tool that will support ecosystem-based planning and sustainable grassland management. LIFE Viva Grass integrated planning tool is spatially explicit and allows the user to assess the provision and trade-offs of grassland ecosystem services within eight project case study areas in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. In order to ensure methodological adaptability, the structure of the LIFE Viva Grass integrated planning tool follows the framework of the tiered approach. In a multi-tier system, each consecutive tier entails an increase in data requirements, methodological complexity or both. The present paper outlines the adaptation of the tiered approach for mapping and assessing ecosystem services provided by grasslands in the Baltic States. The first tier corresponds to a deliberative decision process: The matrix approach is used to assess the potential supply of grassland ecosystem services based on expert estimations. Expert values are subsequently transferred to grassland units and therefore made spatially explicit. The data collected in the first tier was further enhanced through a Principal Components Analysis (PCA) in order to explore ES bundles in tier 2. In the third tier, Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis is used to target specific policy questions

Vides piesarnojuma geokimiska indikacija Latvija

Available from Latvian Academic Library / LAL - Latvian Academic LibrarySIGLELVLatvi

Soviet era landscape change and the post-Soviet legacy in Latvia

The collectivisation of agriculture and the development and application of land improvement “melioration” programmes and technologies, as well as the construction of kolkhoz centres during the Soviet era in Latvia was extensive and has a legacy on the post-Soviet landscape and agricultural economy. A study of a number of rural municipalities in different landscape types, through the comparison of maps from the early 20th century with those from around 2000, and one example with maps from the 1960s and 1990s, together with field work, revealed the degree of change that had taken place. In particular, there was a significant increase in forest – despite the kolkhoz system being targeted at increasing agricultural outputs, a reduction in the number of farmsteads – in some places this was a result of land battles in the Second World war – and a concentration of residences in villages and widespread drainage of marshes, wetlands and wetter forest. Village centres with concentrations of blocks of flats, storage sheds and industrial units were developed. After 1991 and the restitution of land to the original owners or their descendants, large numbers of kolkhoz agricultural buildings, old estate buildings and some residential blocks became redundant and abandoned. Some of the farmland was also abandoned. The sampled areas show different amounts of landscape change and all showed large numbers of ruined buildings scattered around the area. The question of what to do with these, many of which are robbed of anything useful, vandalised and possibly causing pollution remains open, even after 25 or more years

Coherence between marine and land use planning: public attitudes to landscapes in the context of siting a wind park along the Latvian coast of the Baltic Sea

<div><p>The aim of this paper is to contribute to coherence in marine, coastal and land use planning and management from the perspective of landscape values. At a time when new sea uses are emerging and marine spatial planning laws and regulations are being adopted, but have not yet been put into practice, research studies are required that provide spatial planners with informed insights concerning public stakeholder attitudes to controversial policies. The undertaken research explored the attitudes of two important social groups (local residents and tourists/recreational users) regarding locating wind parks in the marine and/or terrestrial environment along the Latvian coast of the Baltic Sea. The results of the study indicate that both groups support land-based wind park development versus offshore. Moreover, the visibility of wind turbines influences the willingness of tourists to visit recreation sites and impacts directly on their duration of stay. Research findings indicate that policy makers and spatial planners from both marine and land domains should adopt a broader and more integrated approach when setting priorities and allocating space for development activities where both domains are involved.</p></div

Integrating ecosystem services into decision support for management of agroecosystems: Viva Grass tool

The area covered by low-input agroecosystems (e.g. semi-natural and permanent grasslands) in Europe has considerably decreased throughout the last century. To support more sustainable management practices, and to promote biodiversity and ecosystem service values of such agroecosystems a decision support tool was developed. The tool aims to enhance the operationalization of ecosystem services and address the challenge of their integration into spatial planning. The Viva Grass tool aims to enhance the maintenance of ecosystem services delivered by low-input agroecosystems. It does so by providing spatially explicit decision support for land-use planning and sustainable management of agroecosystems. The Viva Grass tool is a multi-criteria decision analysis tool for integrated planning. It is designed for farmers, spatial planners and policy makers to support decisions of management of agroecosystems. The tool has been tested to assess spatial planning in eight case studies across the Baltic States