The concept of the territorial system of ecological stability (TSES) in the planning practice in Slovakia

The creation of ecological networks represents basic strategy of the nature and landscape protection. This principle is declared in many international documents, as are: AGENDA 21, Convention on biological diversity from Rio Summit °92, Pan-European strategy about biological and landscape biodiversity, EECONET in European programme IUCN, Landscape Convention etc. The maintenance of valuable natural ecosystems is basic principle of NATURA 2000, too. From these international concepts and programme outcomes national programme of ecological networks. Development of documents for ecological networks has been intensive for the last decade. This development can be seen as a response to fragmentation of land and restructuring and intensification of land use (Jongman, 1996, Jongman, Kristiansen, 2001). The establishment of ecological networks has been proposed as an ideal way to counteract the increasing fragmentation of natural ecosystems and as a necessary complement to the establishment of protected areas for biodiversity conservation (Boitani, at. all., 2007). The creation of ecological networks have been developed in many European countries. The principal reason for creating the European Ecological Network is to integrate protected areas in individual European countries with areas to be protected in the EECONET system, according to international criteria and standards [Bischoff, Jongman 1993]. EECONET aims to promote co-operative action across the whole of Europe contributing to the evolving international process of developing a stronger strategic component to nature conservation in Europe. It is a conceptual and operational framework for translating these objectives into action. (Agger, Brandt, 1988, Forman,1990)

Ecosytem services: A rapid assessment method tested at 35 sites of the LTER-Europe Network

The identification of parameters to monitor the ecosystem services delivered at a site is fundamental to the concept’s adoption as a useful policy instrument at local, national and international scales. In this paper we (i) describe the process of developing a rapid comprehensive ecosystem service assessment methodology and (ii) test the applicability of the protocol at 35 long-term research (LTER) sites across 14 countries in the LTER-Europe network (www.lter-europe.net) including marine, urban, agricultural, forest, desert and conservation sites. An assessment of probability of occurrence with estimated confidence score using 83 ecosystem service parameters was tested. The parameters were either specific services like food production or proxies such as human activities which were considered surrogates for cultural diversity and economic activity. This initial test of the ecosystem service parameter list revealed that the parameters tested were relatively easy to score by site managers with a high level of certainty (92% scored as either occurring or not occurring at the site with certainty of over 90%). Based on this assessment, we concluded that (i) this approach to operationalise the concept of ecosystem services is practical and applicable by many sectors of civil society as a first screen of the ecosystem services present at a site, (ii) this study has direct relevance to land management and policy decision makers as a transparent vehicle to focus testing scenarios and target data gathering, but (iii) further work beyond the scale investigated here is required to ensure global applicability

Perception of the Values of the Biocultural Landscape Types of Slovakia by the Population

The perception of the landscape by society is becoming an integral part of many studies in terms of the quality of the living environment, sport and recreation and building and developing social relationships. To evaluate the perception and appreciation of individual landscape types by society, we used an online questionnaire as a form of sociological survey. We used the statistical method of non-metric multidimensional scaling NMDS in R package to determine the variability of responses in relation to respondents. The relationship between demographic factors and landscape perception and landscape type preferences was evaluated. The results of multidimensional scaling show a strong relationship between young men and a preference for recreation over agro-tourism. The middle generation with university education looks more frequently for cultural monuments. University-educated middle-aged men perceive the natural landscape as degraded and endangered, and middle-aged men with secondary education understand the need for the protection of traditional agricultural landscapes. It is important to integrate people’s preferences and needs into the landscape planning and decision-making processes, so that they can contribute to the creation of development plans and other strategic documents

Evaluation of the changes of landscape types of Slovakia

<p>In the last period landscape protection, its representative types more and more comes to the limelight. In October 2000 the <a href="http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/Commun/QueVoulezVous.asp?NT=176&amp;CM=8&amp;DF=5/19/2009&amp;CL=ENG">European Landscape Convention</a> - also known as the Florence Convention was adopted. The aims of this Convention are to promote landscape protection, management and planning, and to organise European co-operation on landscape issues.  Contracting states ought to analyse the landscape types on the whole area of their countries, to analyse their features, record their changes, specify motive power and pressure forming them and assess selected types with respect to special values attributed by engaged participants and inhabitants. Knowledge and identification of single landscape types enable the intensification of care of diversity of single landscape types and landscape biodiversity. It is an unavoidable condition in the strategic planning process and effective protection of regionally special landscape.</p><p>Slovakia signed ELC in 2005 and became an active participant in its implementation. The Institute of the Landscape Ecology of Slovak Academy of Sciences elaborated methodology for specification and evaluation of the representative landscape types of Slovakia (RLTS).</p><p>RLTS are defined as homogeneous units considering the landscape character, functions and current land-use. GIS (Geographical Information Systems) tool was used to create RLTS, in particular by overlaying of abiotic landscape structure (type of relief, quaternary deposits, climatic regions, and soil types) and land-cover map (CORINE Land Cover 2006 - CLC) at national scale. This process yielded to a patched map of homogeneous areas, which were further interpreted, generalized, and regionalized to a final map of RLTS.</p><p>Landscape types of Slovakia were defined by the synthesis of the mentioned maps. Totally there were identified 126 basic landscape types. Each landscape type represents unique combination of land-use in different abiotic conditions and gives the unique environment for nature development In the second stage typing  rare and unique landscape types of Slovakia have been marked.</p><p>Following, all RLTS were evaluated from the point of view nature protection and recent degradation and threats. In the meantime main changes of RLES were identified, taken into account also key driving forces of landscape changes and consequent pressures on the landscape. The final step included preparation of management proposal with aim to maintain all representative landscape types and to secure their sustainable development and protection.</p

Long-Term Land Use Changes Driven by Urbanisation and Their Environmental Effects (Example of Trnava City, Slovakia)

Similar to other post-communist countries, Slovakia has undergone significant changes in the last decades—largely through transformation of central planning into a market economy. Unfortunately, this process has been associated with increasing pressure on surrounding ecosystems and their individual components. These changes are subject to various influences, e.g., socio-economic, political and environmental; in addition, urbanisation has also had great influence. This is typified by conversion of productive agricultural land and semi-natural ecosystems into built-up area accompanied by the negative ecological impacts of habitat deterioration and fragmentation. The rapidly changing consumption patterns of luxury living, transportation and leisure have increased the negative consequences on ecosystems and these compound the negative environmental trends. This paper evaluates land use changes in Trnava, which is one of the most rapidly developing cities in Slovakia. Evaluation covers 1838–2015, with explicit emphasis on transformation over the last 25–30 years. We present comparison with developments since 1990 in other cities in Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Germany and then discuss the main processes and environmental problems related to these changes, concentrating on the sustainability of current trends and appropriate planning and management responses

Attitudes of the involved subjects to the issue of biodiversity conservation in the Protected Area of the Malé Karpaty Mts (Results of personal interviews)

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the biodiversity from the stakeholders’ point of view as well as to identify the conflicts of interests and the ensuing problems between hunting and the development of other socio-economic activities in the central part of Protected Area of the Little Carpathians. The specified conflicts of interests between hunters, conservationists and farmers are followed by measures that may contribute to increase the biodiversity in this model territory

Lokalizačné kritériá uplatňované pri stavaní historických hradov a zámkov na Slovensku/Localisation Criteria Applied for the Construction of Historic Castles and Chateaux in Slovakia

This article assesses the location factors involved in the construction of Slovak castles and chateaux, because the location is not coincidental but associated with anthropogenically created or altered land units. We primarily concentrated on assessing the natural factors that influenced these locations, and then evaluated the following variables; the type of natural landscape and its altitude and elevation above the nearest erosion base point

Assessment of Representative Landscape Types of Skalica District

Assessment of landscape quality is not possible without a good local landscape-ecological, social, economic and also political knowledge. When similar scientific researches and proposals for strategic development documents for municipalities and regions are needed, they have to come out mainly from scientific knowledge about unique and rare representative types of landscape. Implementation of a research module of the presented study entitled ‘Assessment of representative landscapes of Skalica district’ represents a complex example of a proposal on the methodical procedure of landscape-ecological analysis of Skalica district. Therefore, the core of this work lies in the detailed determination of the environmental quality of landscapes in Skalica district, which allowed us to evaluate the degree of environmental load and protection of each selected representative landscape type in the model area. This scientific knowledge is in continuation of the project complemented with opinions and attitudes of residents and key stakeholders about environmental, economic, cultural and social problems. The obtained knowledge can help towards optimal use of resources and potentials in the area and thus contribute to improving the overall quality of life in the monitored area

Model of the Representative Geoecosystem at Regional Level

The paper is aimed at the presentation of the new conception of nature protection. The new conception is based on the creation and protection of the representative geoecosystems. The strategic aim of defining the representative geo-ecosystem is: to determine a representative geo-ecosystem for each territorial unit on the given hierarchical level - the regional principle, to determine a representative occurrence for each type of the geo-ecosystem – the typological principle. The list of types of representative geo-ecosystems should serve as an ecologically based systematic framework for new protected areas (according to the analysis of unsufficiently protected representative geo-ecosystems) designations, as well as for methodical proposals of biocentres of the territorial system of ecological stability. The new approach to nature conservation is based not only on the protection of life forms but also on the protection of living conditions

Building Ecological Networks In Slovakia And Poland

The paper is aimed at evaluating the creation of territorial systems of ecological stability in two neighbouring countries - Slovakia and Poland. The paper evaluates various initiatives and approaches and their positives and negatives. It represents methodical approaches to the creation of territorial systems of ecological stability as well as the legal provision of ecological networks in both countries. The outcome of the evaluation is the proposal for the necessary measures to improve the situation