Landscape photography in the research of landscape change

The paper presents partial results of “entering” landscape photography, which can be considered as a complementary method for the research of landscape changes. Unlike the usual assessment of landscape changes using cartographic and other archival sources, old landscape photographs can contribute to the deeper knowledge of the local specifics of the examined places or supplement the conventional procedures. Thanks to the ongoing project, supported by the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic (TL02000222), we documented changes in photographic shots of various landscapes in the 20th century. We also added information about environment, vegetation, and geography and photo documentation of the details of the researched shot. This creates a comprehensive output for each old landscape photograph. Such processed photographs have been presented at exhibitions in museums and galleries. Furthermore, they will be available to municipalities and public at a web page created as a tool to support public recreation. Here we present some examples from the Bohemian-Moravian Highlands. They show four types of landscape changes: 1) afforestation and overgrowth bywoody vegetation, 2) changes in the agricultural landscape, 3) loss of the grazing landscape, and 4) changes related to watercourses.\

Military topographic maps of the Czech Republic from the first half of the 20th century

In the period between 1918 and 1945 military surveys or revision of previous maps were undertaken in the newly established Czechoslovak state. From this period, four sets of military topographic maps can be distinguished. The first set is represented by revised maps of the Third Austrian Military Survey. The revision was conducted between 1921 and 1954 and the map sheets are at scale 1:25 000. The second set is the maps of provisional military survey from 1923 to 1933 at scales 1:10 000 and 1:20 000. They were drawn in the Beneš’s normal conformal conic projection and were completed only for a few percents of the state territory. The third set includes maps from 1934–1938, when a definite military survey was carried out. These 1:20 000 maps were completed using the Křovák’s oblique conformal conic projection, covering again only a part of the state territory, in this case almost one tenth of it. Finally, the German maps called “Messtischblätter” (plane table sheets) were created during the German occupation of the Czech lands in the World War II at scale 1:25 000. They were created in the Gauss-Krüger transverse cylindrical projection and covered about 10% of the state territory, mainly in Moravia. All four map sets used the Bessel’s ellipsoid

Open Farm Management Information System Supporting Ecological and Economical Tasks

Part 4: Health and BiosphereInternational audienceA Farm Management Information System (FMIS) is a sophisticated tool managing geospatial data and functionalities as it provides answers to two basic questions: what has happened and where. The presented FOODIE (Farm-Oriented Open Data in Europe) and DataBio (Data-Driven Bioeconomy) approach may be recognized as an OpenFMIS, where environmental and reference geospatial data for precision agriculture are provided free of charge. On the other hand, added-value services like yield potential, sensor monitoring, and/or machinery fleet monitoring are provided on a paid basis through standardised Web services due to the costs of hardware and non-trivial computations. Results, i.e. reference, environmental and farm-oriented geospatial data, may be obtained from the FOODIE platform. All such results of whatever kind are used in the European DataBio project in order to minimise the environmental burden while maximising the economic benefits

Are species listed in the Annex II of the Habitats Directive better represented in Natura 2000 network than the remaining species? A test using Spanish bats

One of the main aims of protected areas is to be effective in the conservation of target species, i.e. those of the highest conservation concern. The Natura 2000 network (N2000) of protected areas is the main pillar of European action to halt biodiversity loss. Within N2000, special areas of conservation (SACs) are designated to protect habitats and species of the highest conservation interest, i.e. habitats from Annex I and species (other than birds) listed in Annex II of the Habitat Directive. Thus, a critical and urgent task is to assess the effectiveness of N2000 in the protection of these species. Here, we used distribution data for Spanish bats to test whether the species included in Annex II are better represented in N2000 than the remaining bats found in Spain, since SAC sites were specifically designated to protect the former species. In general, we found significantly high overlapping values between species distribution and N2000 sites (both groups of species are in general over-represented in N2000). However, contrary to our expectations, N2000 (even when only SACs were considered) did not offer higher representation values for the species listed in Annex II than for other species. We found that N2000 performed well even for non-target species, and that species from Annex II could have acted as effective umbrella species for the remaining bat species. Finally, the usefulness of including a species in Annex II is discussed, and guidelines to improve the efficiency of the N2000 for bat conservation are offered.D. S.-F. was supported by a postdoctoral Grant (Juan de La Cierva programme) from Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness.Peer reviewe