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Soil – Environment – Sustainability
331-337Views:179The future and life quality of human society depends primarily on the success of the sustainable use of natural resources: the geological strata–soil–water–biota–near surface atmosphere continuum. Soil is the most significant conditionally renewable natural resource in our Earth’s system, with three unique properties: multifunctionality; fertility/ productivity; resilience. In the case of rational land use and precise soil management soil does not disappear, and its desirable „quality” does not decrease considerably, irreversibly and unavoidably. Its renewal, however, requires continuous care and permanent activities.
Consequently, the prevention, elimination or moderation of soil degradation processes and extreme hydrological situations (the two main factors limiting desirable soil multifunctionality) with rational land use and soil management are the key factors and priority tasks of sustainable development on each level and in each phase of the decisionmaking process. -
Marginalisation and Multifunctional Land Use in Hungary
50-61Views:75Our study prepared as a brief version of National Report in the frame of EUROLAN Programme. We deal with the interpretation of some definitions (marginalisation of land use, multifunctionality of land use, marginalisation of agriculture, multifunctionality of agriculture), with sorting and reviewing indicators of marginalisation and finally with the analysis of functions of land use. We suggested a dynamic and a static approach of marginalisation. We can explore the dynamic process by time series and the static (regional) one by cross-section analyses.
It is very hard to explain the perspective of the future of marginalisation of land and of agriculture in Hungary. The process of marginalisation seems faster in the agriculture in the coming years, but it depends on the utilisation of new possibilities given by the EU financial resources and by the Common Market. At this moment agriculture seems one of the big losers of the accession.
In the long term we should face considerable challenges in the land use. It is necessary to take into account that there is a supply market of foods and traditional fibre production world-wide. There are limited possibilities to produce and to market for example biodiesel (fuel), bioethanol, or maybe biogas. Thus the environment and landscape preservation becomes more and more real land use alternatives.
The environmental interpretation of the multifunctionality of land use: activities (functions) of environmental preservation and nature conservation in a certain area, which aim to preserve natural resources by the existing socio-economic conditions.
Preservation of rural landscapes is the task mainly for land-users, who can be commanded by legal means and can be encouraged by economic measures to carry out the above activity. In the recent past measures of „command and control” type regulation were predominant, however nowadays, especially in the developed countries, the role of economic incentives increases.
As a conclusion of our analysis we can state that as long as the main land-dependent activities (agriculture, forestry, housing, tourism, local mining) cease to be viable under an existing socio-economic structure, then it is hardly possible to sustain the rural landscape on an appropriate level by non-commodity products (such as environment preservation, cultural heritage, nature conservation, employment etc.).
1 The study was prepared in the frame of EUROLAN (EU-5 Framework Project), QLK5-CT-2002-02346, as a compiled version of the Hungarian National Report, The national project co-ordinator: Prof. Dr. Gabor Szabo.
A part of places with high ecological values coincides with the areas with unfavourable agricultural endowments and underdeveloped micro-regions. We think so that the marginalisation preserves the non-environmental-sound activities and hinders the development of multifunctional agriculture and this process can change only by joint utilisation of endogenous and exogenous resources and methods. Thus the successful programmes for agri-environmental protection and multifunctional land use can serve the moderation of negative effects of marginalisation or maybe the marginalisation process itself. -
Some context of the multifunctional agricultural and sustainable rural development
29-37Views:136The paper first negotiates the concept of multifunctionality, then the main steps of the development of the connection between agriculture and rural development are discussed. It presents the situation of a most disadvantageous sub-region that is aided by a complex program. The local rural resources are estimated by the multifunctional rural resource analysis method considering threefold function of the rural areas. It is concluded, that the land use systems and labour-intensive cropping systems have specific missions in multifunctional agriculture and rural development in the sub-region.
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Land use changes in suburban areas – case study of Lublin
43-46Views:94The main reason to analyzing the space structure in the Lublin area is to determine the direction and pace of suburbanization in municipalities adjacent to Lublin, distinction factors and motives of population movements to the suburbs, complain rural-urban interaction and multifunctionality of land use. Housing development over the years was accompanied by confusion in planning documents and the law. Changes in regulations on land use in 1994 and 2003 in Poland additionally deepened the negative situation. Local authorities failed to control the spontaneous process of suburbanization, which adversely affected not only the spatial structure of municipalities, but also on local relationship, landscape, land use and the former urban systems. The result are long-term problems associated with incompatibility rural areas to support a growing number of residents, such as failure of the social and technical infrastructure.
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Economic Aspects of Bioethanol Production
30-38Views:66Sustainability and multifunctionality look to be crucial points of the future of developed agriculture. Energy utilization of a part of the available biomass perfectly fits in these expectations. Bioethanol production allows for the substitution of the most expensive and most pollutable energy source, gasoline, by agricultural materials. This article contains a complex evaluation of economic characteristics of this method and calculations for the expectable economic effects of a would-be Hungarian bioethanol program. This essay includes the most important technological knowledge, a comparison between bioethanol and the competitive energy sources (gasoline, biodiesel, MTBE) and the most interesting elements of bioethanol programs operating in foreign countries. Introduced are which participants in the bioethanol chain have financial interests and counter-interests under present economic conditions in the spread of bioethanol by the enumerazation of macro- and micro-economic factors. The statements and consequences are based on my own calculatiosn so I am truly interested in any professional opinion.