Search

Published After
Published Before

Search Results

  • Regional Development Differences in Hungary and the Northern-Great Plain Region
    62-71
    Views:
    190

    The most important endeavour of European Union’s regional policy is to moderate disparities. An emphasised strategic objective of member states, based on the principle of solidarity, fairness and justice, is to develop regions and almost forty percent of the common budget is devoted to achieving this objective.
    Hungary, as a full EU member state, will get a new chance for underdeveloped regions, especially for the Eastern-Hungarian as well as the North Hungarian and North Plain Region.
    The differences in development among the regions are significantly influenced by the economic characteristics of the specific region, quality and quantity of human resources, accessability of the region and other factors influencing local quality of life beside natural conditions.
    The new spatial structure was formed by change of regime, processes of the nineties, primarily the economic renewal based on foreign capital investments and the crisis phenomena in parallel with these. The economic, political and social consequences of the transformation significantly changed spatial structure and increased disparities. New disparities formed which were further aggravated as a consequence due to the formation of the eastern-western slope and local crisis zones. As a result of the outstanding development of the capital, the long term differentiation of regional development differences can also be detected when examining the regional distribution of Hungarian gross domestic product. The collapse of heavy industry and agricultural mass production based on the eastern markets primarily affected the north-east counties in the eastern part of the country.
    Strengthening regional competitiveness is of key importance for the region, which requires the application of consistent development policy. The most important is economic development which, if it operates well, also infers the possibility of establishing welfare infrastructures. Drawing in external sources to ease the significant lack of capital is important for the processing industry and the development of supplier networks. Agricultural development also plays an important role in transforming economic structure, since the characteristics of the region, its traditions and long term competitive advantages are favourable, therefore it is going to represent a higher ratio within the economy than the EU average. The modernisation of the agricultural sector can be promoted by supporting market accession, quality agricultural production and stimulating producer-retailer cooperation. The development of transportation and informatics infrastructure as well as human resource development plays a significantly important role in the development of the region.
    In conclusion, the implementation of such a consistent regional development policy is required in the future, based on the strengths of the region, that serves the most efficient utilisation of regional development funds through the implementation of regional policy principles and prevents the irreversible decay of the region while promoting rapid development.

  • On the connection between spatial development and sustainable landscape in the Northern Great Plain region
    145-148
    Views:
    70

    This paper tries to find connection between sustainable landscape and spatial development policy of the Northern Great Plain region on the basis of specific examples explained in scientific literature. Searching for the common roots of spatial development and sustainability the paper explains two interpretations of sustainability from the view point of landscape, than the most significant element of current landscape change – the polarization of landscapes – will be introduced. This trend in landscape change basically determines the direction of spatial development. This paper analyses the Northern Great Plain region from two different approaches. In the first grouping the region is exposed from the view point of spatial development. In the second partitioning the area is divided into subject matters based on the principles of sustainability and polarization of landscape. This research – analyzing development plans and strategies – considers the current situation within the subject matters.

  • Differences in Regional Development in the Northern Great Plain Region
    170-180
    Views:
    177

    An important ambition of EU regional politics is the reduction of disparities. An important strategical objective of the Commission is to terminate underdevelopment and to ensure the development of the regions based on the principles of solidarity, equity and justice. The commission has dedicated forty percent of its common budget to achieve these goals. The differences in development are significantly influenced by the economic characteristics of the specific region, the quality and quantity of human resources, the accessibility of the region and factors influencing local quality of life.
    The new spatial structure has been formed by the processes of the change of regime, the events of nineties and the economic renewal based onforeign capital investments parallel with crisis phenomenon. The economic, political and social consequences of the transformation have significantly transformed spatial structure and increased disparities. New disparities have formed, which strengthened due to the formation of east-west slopes and local crisis zones. The outstanding improvement of the capital resulted in great regional development differences, which can be detected when examining regional distribution of gross domestic product. The Eastern part of the country was most heavily affected by the collapse of heavy industry and agricultural mass production based on the Eastern markets.
    It is of key importance for the region to strengthen regional competitiveness, which requires the application of consistent development-politics. Economic development is the most important, which can also draw the possibility of establishing welfare infrastructures. It is important to develop the processing industry, the supply networks and to ease the lack of capital it is also important to involve foreign capital. Developing agriculture plays an important role in transforming the structure of the economy. Since the conditions of the region, its traditions and long-term competitive advantages are favorable, thus can represent a greater ratio in the economy than the EU average. The modernisation of the agricultural sector can be promoted by supporting marketing, quality agricultural development and producer-retail cooperation. It is also highly important to promote development in transportation and informatics infrastructure and human resources.
    In the future – based on the strength of the region – it is necessary to achieve such a consistent regional development politics, which by validating the principles of regional politics, serves the interest of utilizing regional development supports most efficiently and prevents the irreversible underdevelopment of the region and promotes fast development.

  • Thoughts about the connection between spatial development and sustainable landscape at the region of the Northern Great Plain
    179-185
    Views:
    93

    This paper tries to find connections between sustainable landscape and spatial development policy of the Northern Great Plain region on the basis of specific examples explained in scientific literature. Searching for the common roots of spatial development and sustainability the paper explains two interpretation of sustainability from the view point of landscape, than the most significant element of current landscape change, the polarization of landscapes, will be introduced. This trend in landscape change basically determines the direction of spatial development. This paper analyses the Northern Great Plain region form two different approaches. In the first grouping the region is exposed from the view point of landscape. In the second partitioning the area is divided into subject matters based on the principles of sustainability and polarization of landscape. This research – analysing development plans and strategies – considers the current situation and the tasks of the future within the subject matters.

  • Role of the landscape in spatial and rural development
    37-41
    Views:
    105

    The study is going to reveal the role of landscape potential in spatial and rural development based on the analyses of scientific literature. The target area of the research is three micro regions in Hajdú-Bihar county. In addition to the analyses of scientific literature the study pays attention to the assay of local development concepts and programmes. The conclusion of the study is that the analyses of landscape changes on micro regional level are obstructed by the lack of micro regional spatial development and substantive landscape plans.

  • Development directions of microregional spatial environments
    61-64
    Views:
    145

    The question how economic, technological and infrastructural developments, as well as products and technologies contribute to the unity and constant strengthening of the society is still unanswered both in Europe and the whole world.

    The current erosion of the society and the weakening social cohesion is a regrettable process. These phenomena are a barrier to real development processes and weaken the extension of the economic space; therefore, this negative process has to be stopped and turned into a positive direction.

    For this reason, it is increasingly urgent to work out new, feasible solutions, since it has become obvious that solutions whose sole aim is to increase profit typically weaken the indispensable unity of the society, market positions, innovation processes, as well as natural and environmental harmony.

    In this situation, we analysed and interpreted the disadvantaged and multiply disadvantaged microregional spatial environments, with special regard to the strategic developments that serve both the strengthening of the microsocieties of microregional spaces and the development of the economy and the extension of economic space.

    The identification of disadvantaged microregional spaces is basically done by means of economic indexes, but it is also important to emphasise that these indexes can only be interpreted with social indexes, as they define the situation of the microregional space and the possible development directions together.

    The constant strengthening of social unity (cohesion) and the related economic development is basically a new focal point and objective.

  • Cultural landscape on the border: érmellék
    197-200
    Views:
    115

    Cultural landscapes are haunting topic of the european spatial development. Cultural landscapes as cultural heritage determine the local and regional identity. The study shows the role and the significance of the cultural landscape by the help of UNESCO World Heritage Convention, the European Spatial Development Perspective and the European Landscape Convention. The article speaks about how can we maintain and develop cross border landscapes and cultural landscapes and through introducing Érmellék it would like to draw attention to the fact that landscape level planning and development of common landscape politics are one of the main interests of Hungary. That kind of politics play an important role not only in maintaining landscapes but in the regional economic development.

  • The possibilities of biomass utilization in the field of spatial development
    59-63
    Views:
    93

    By joining the European Union, Hungary made a commitment to increasingly utilize renewable energy sources. Keeping in view the agricultural circumstances of Hungary, we can state that biomass utilization has, overall, the greatest range of possibilities to use its products as ‘energy sources’. Biomass raw materials are useful in meeting emission control regulations for environment protection and to reduce climate change. The role of biomass production in spatial and rural development and in rural employment, and also in the decrease of Hungary’s energy dependence, supports development in biomass energy use. My aim in studying biomass utilization is the creation of a micro-regional level, decentralised, agro-energetic system-model for the use of plant and animal biomass for energy purposes, whether naturally or by anthropogenic activity, on agro- and sylvicultural areas, and on animal breeding farms. This model simulation method serves as a planning base for policy-makers during the spatial planning processes. The examination is presently in the stage of data collection. The collection of the basic data of the examination area and the purchase of the necessary equipment, materials and maps has already started. Contact has been made with local stakeholders, municipalities, municipality associations and micro-region managers.

  • Survey on energetic short rotation forestry systems – Possibilities of spatial development and job creation
    7-11
    Views:
    90

    Both the European and the Hungarian rural areas suffer multi dimensional problems. Beside infrastructural under development the most important difficulty is employment. Unemployment is significant in the rural areas, while other structural characteristics like education, profession, work circumstances and seasonality worsen this unfavourable situation. It can be stated that the challenge with the highest priority in rural and spatial
    development is to create jobs and to strengthen local employment. The authors examine the job generating possibilities of energetic biomass of agricultural origin in a structural point of view. The aim is to develop spatial biomass product line models that permanently support the raise of employment by utilizing the possibilities of the European Union support policy and the popularity of this branch.

  • The Target Areas of Regional Development, Tool and Institutional Background, its Present and Future Prospects
    138-142
    Views:
    108

    Regional politics determines the aims of regional structures, and the tools with the institutional background on the whole necessary achieve these. Realizing the aims of regional politics is a precondition of executing the basic principles of regional development and politics. The regional institutional system for handling the decentralized financial resources has not evolved in Hungary yet. The professional institutes for preparing the programs have not been set up, and the management of execution is slowly taking shape. There are still deficiencies in the domestic application of concentration and addition principles. A number of funds are provided on a national level, that are directly or indirectly aimed at regional development. The obvious coordination among the funds is not carried out neither on a national, nor on a regional level, partly to avoid parallel consumption aims. The future of Hungarian spatial structure depends on the type of decentralization strategy the country will follow for the new resources after the accession. Total decentralization offers the most efficient solution for Hungary.

  • The structure of tertiary education, training and research potential influencing factors
    49-53
    Views:
    140

    Nowadays more and more pronounced demand for tertiary education appears as an output of the labor market and the real labor market needs coordination of intention. A necessary condition for the long-term sector strategies, conscious coordination. In Hungary – the sector management level – headed tertiary education training structure and the transformation of the institutional network. There is a close relationship between training supply and research and development potential, as an institution typically the same disciplinary education and research base continues. Based on this, we assume that the structure of the training may influence the development of the restructuring of the research and development potential as well. The institutional network reorganization (merger, liquidation, establishment of new institutions) is expected to result in a former spatial structure of tertiary education in the modification, which in itself is a training and research supply spatial rearrangement may apply. Against this background, questions have been raised as to how the objectives in the current tertiary education strategy for economic operators serving the needs of each territorial unit, how the institution fits into network transformation of economic structure and labor market needs of the regions.

    In order for the Hungarian tertiary education can meet the requirement for industry standards, an essential part of the structure of industries, and the changes occurring in the economic structure, trends and industry relations in the investigation. On the other hand, we do not ignore those factors are not, which have a determining influence on the tertiary education institutions in training and R&D supply. As part of this study in tertiary education institutions will be examined possible factors influencing education, research and development demand and supply, which gets a prominent role in the economic structure of relations between the territorial dimension in the evolution of discount factors and the nature of particular sectors.

  • Spatial environment analisys of the bioenergy production and utilization
    235-240
    Views:
    108

    The backwardness of the rural areas compared to the cities poses a problem all over Europe. Rural development and the reduction of differences between the development levels of the regions have expressed roles among the programs of the European Union. Member States are even entitled to subsidisation, they just need to manage subsidies economically. In Hungary, a relatively small amount of the population lives in the capital, more than 80% of Hungarians live in rural cities or villages. The opposition between the countryside and the cities is rather intensified and the symbiotic correlation would need to be restored. Many people migrate from the countryside, especially youngsters, as they have no opportunities to find any job. This phenomenon poses big risks because getting a job is usually difficult everywhere and because fitting into a new environment always involves a lot of difficulties. Also from the aspect of the national economy, migration from the rural areas to the cities is a problem. The state budget will face significant excess costs if someone moves from a village to the city. It could cause unpredictable consequences if people leave the villages, as the maintenance and development of the village living space will face a hopeless situation.
    Non-renewable energies are restricted and they will not be accessible after reaching a certain limit. People’s everyday activities and the functioning of the economy presupposes the availabilty of the necessary amount of energy. In the future, solution that provide the longterm stability of energy for the world will become increasingly necessary. There is a huge potential in bioenergy, more specifically in biomass. The building of biomass plants and putting them into operation creates jobs in the rural spatial environments. A locally available resource that can help in creating the energy safety of the country and the reduction of the dependence on import. The production of energy crops or the crops whose purpose of use is energy could help in strengthening the multifunctional character of agriculture and it can represent a source of income for those living off of agriculture under the current uncertain conditions.

  • Periphery formation and economic-social conflict
    87-90
    Views:
    125

    The timeliness, significance and importance of the study is sensitively shown by the fact that a large part of the Tisza region is slowly being moved to the periphery in the slowly modernising and changing economic and settlement spatial structure of the Great Plain. This situation is also deepened by the fact that the social and economic backlog increases in the majority of the region, as one third of the 33 most disadvantaged small regions in Hungary can be found here. This study basically contributes to the establishment of the development of the Tisza river’s spatial environment and the development of new solutions.

  • Dilemma of interpreting the Tisza space in regional dimensions
    169-171
    Views:
    121

    This study deals with the evaluation of an especially important area, since the Tisza river is the basis of the spatial organisation of the Great Plain, the main spatial structural axis of Eastern Hungary and also its ecologic corridor of continental significance. The Tisza is a river which connects five countries to each other and it has an enormous catchment area. Its longest section can be found in Hungary. Two million people live directly in the spatial environment of the river. The safety and favourable quality of life of these people have to be provided. This is a great challenge from the aspect of regional development, economic, technological improvement, the acceleration of innovation processes, as well as the establishment of natural and environmental harmony.

  • Development opportunities for storing and displaying of spatial data in long-term experiments
    81-86
    Views:
    129

    Long-term experiments are required to evaluate the impact of irrigation, nutrient utilization, and year factor as well as to assess the potential consequences of climate change. However, in the long-term experiment, it may be necessary to display spatial data for each parcel, either for investigation of soil heterogeneity or presentation. This article aims to provide help for researchers working in long-term experiments for storing and displaying spatial data.

    After the outlines of each experimental site were measured with GPS, a spatial database has been created in Quantum GIS. Then, a filter script in R statistical environment using RStudio graphical interface was written. The script helps avoid the QGIS data input interface so that large data can be attached to each parcel directly and as a result there is no need for a separate data entry, only the basic statistical database.

    The created GIS database can be used in many ways; it can be exported to KML file format that can be displayed using Google Earth. It is possible to view exported KML files in Google Drive with importing them to Google My Maps application, and with that a browser can display the map. With the Google Drive the maps can be shared within the research group, additionally the outlines can be edited and it is possible to upload the measurement data to the attributes table to existing empty table columns. The map created in Quantum GIS can be used for presentation purposes.

  • Assessment of Environmental Susceptibility/Vulnerability of Soils
    62-74
    Views:
    100

    Soils represent a considerable part of the natural resources of Hungary. Consequently, rational land use and proper soil management – to guarantee normal soil functions – are important elements of sustainable (agricultural) development, having special importance both in the national economy and in environment protection.
    The main soil functions in the biosphere are as follows: conditionally renewable natural resource; reactor, transformer and integrator of the combined influences of other natural resources (solar radiation, atmosphere, surface and subsurface waters, biological resources), place of „sphere-interactions”; medium for biomass production, primary food-source of the biosphere; storage of heat, water and plant nutrients; natural filter and detoxication system, which may prevent the deeper geological formations and the subsurface waters from various pollutants; high capacity buffer medium, which may prevent or moderate the unfavourable consequences of various environmental stresses; significant gene-reservoir, an important element of biodiversity.
    Society utilizes these functions in different ways (rate, method, efficiency) throughout history, depending on the given natural conditions and socio-economic circumstances. In many cases the character of the particular functions was not properly taken into consideration during the utilization of soil resources, and the misguided management resulted in their over-exploitation, decreasing efficiency of one or more soil functions, and – over a certain limit – serious environmental deterioration.
    Soil resources are threatened by the following environmental stresses:
    – soil degradation processes;
    – extreme moisture regime;
    – nutrient stresses (deficiency or toxicity);
    – environmental pollution.
    Environmental stresses caused by natural factors or human activities represent an increasing ecological threat to the biosphere, as well as a socio-economic risk for sustainable development, including rational land use and soil management.
    The stresses are caused by the integrated impacts of various soil properties, which are the results of soil processes (mass and energy regimes, abiotic and biotic transport and transformation and their interactions) under the combined influences of soil forming factors. Consequently, the control of soil processes is a great challenge and the main task of soil science and soil management in sustainable development.
    The efficient control of these processes necessitates the following consecutive steps:
    • registration of facts and consequences (information on land and soil characteristics, land use, cropping pattern, applied agrotechnics, yields, with their spatial and temporal variability);
    • evaluation of potential reasons (definition and quantification of soil processes, analysis of influencing factors and their mechanisms);
    • assessment of the theoretical, real, rational and economic possibilities for the control of soil processes (including their risk-assessment and impact analysis);
    • elaboration of efficient technologies for the „best” control alternatives (best management practice).
    Scientifically based planning and implementation of sustainable land use and rational soil management to ensure desirable soil functions, without any undesirable environmental side-effects, require adequate soil information. In the last years such data were organized into a computer-based GIS soil database in Hungary, giving opportunities for the quantification, analysis, modelling and forecasting of the studied environmental stresses and for the efficient and scientifically based prevention, elimination or reduction of environmental stresses and their unfavourable ecological and economical consequences.
    Special attention was paid to the assessment of various soil degradation processes, as: (1) soil erosion by water or wind; (2) soil acidification; (3) salinization and/or alkalization; (4) physical degradation (structure destruction, compaction); (5) extreme moisture regime: drought sensitivity and waterlogging hazard; (6) biological degradation; (7) unfavourable changes in the plant nutrient regime; (8) decrease of natural buffering capacity, (9) soil (and water) pollution.
    The actions against undesirable environmental stresses and their unfavourable consequences are important elements of sustainable, efficient, economically viable, socially acceptable and environmentally sound crop production and agricultural development. These are joint tasks of the state, decision makers on various levels, the land owners, the land users and – to a certain extent – of each member of the society.

  • Integrated development strategy of the catchment area of the Tisza river
    31-36
    Views:
    203

    The main challenge for mankind has always been to eliminate the borders of its living space, as well as to explore and discover its new faces. Contemporary literature strengthens this postulate. It is the preference of the experts of various fields in spatial analysis is to consider space to be repairable, changeable and organisable. In accordance with this axiom, the five affected countries in the catchment area of the Tisza river (Hungary, Romania, Ukraine, Slovakia and Serbia) worked out an integrated, mutual standpoint to support the problems of the catchment area and to exploit its opportunities with the aim to support transnational cooperation. They laid great emphasis on the existing resources which could become the driving force behind regional development directions. This study contains the summarised outcomes of the TICAD project (SEE/A 638/4.2./X) which was drawn up as a result of cooperation between renowned institutions of the five affected countries within the South East Europe Transnational Cooperation Programme (lead partner: VÁTI, Hungary).

  • The role of mediation resources in the operation and development of knowledgeintensive small and medium enterprises
    109-113
    Views:
    138

    Address social and economic processes of social capital system between universities and the business sector – because of their special and similar characteristics – major emphasis will be displayed. Knowledge-intensive companies would be hard to imagine functioning without established links with tertiary education institutions and universities can now functions would be unthinkable without displaying the corporate sector sectoral specificities of knowledge and strategies of the university.

    Because of the development of knowledge-intensive business activities based on innovation-oriented economic development which are specific to innovative SMEs, funding sources and opportunities. In a typical operating environment of innovation, with sectoral, spatial and temporal factors are constantly changing. These factors are decisive elements in the innovation opportunities, and through this indirectly the success of these enterprises. The resources involved in mediating the markets perceive a high risk to price this innovation activities and their funding. Under the study to try to answer that by optimizing the functions of universities, how and in what form they may have a role in mitigating financial risks.

  • Evaluation of technologies and resources from the spatial and social aspect
    73-75
    Views:
    237

    The basic functioning of the world is mostly led by negative trends. One of the fundamental reasons for this phenomenon is that the different technologies (hardware, software, resources) do not act properly and in the proper structure by means of the produced products and services. Therefore, the examination of technologies and resources is a key question of our world and development from various aspects. Technologies convey all positive and negative impacts which can be regarded as the fundamental reasons and causes of harmonious or disharmonious development. For this reason, the role of technologies in development and harmonious functioning is of paramount importance.

    As a final conclusion, we established that the different technologies (hardware, software, resources) are interpreted as impact conveyors which predominate by means of products and services in a way that their relation system is determined. By using the thermodynamic interpretation which is the basis of the functioning of the world, we built a system consisting of 14 elements to evaluate different technologies, to interpret its functioning and to develop positive interactions and trends.

  • Land use changes in suburban areas – case study of Lublin
    43-46
    Views:
    108

    The 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.

  • Topology in the fruit plantation
    253-257
    Views:
    240

    The localization of fruit trees, the topology of the branch structure and the spatial structure of the canopy are important to plan sitespecific agro-ecological and production technology projects in an orchard. The currently used instruments and technologies – in the precision agriculture – give opportunities to obtain these informations. The examinations were carried out in the Study and Regional Research Farm of the University of Debrecen near Pallag with the use of a GreenSeeker 505 Hand Held™ Optical Sensor Unit, and its interface the Trimble AgGPS FmX Integrated Display board computer. The collected spectral data were completed with the 3D point cloud by Leica ScanStation C10 laser scanner. The laser impulse data and the vegetation index values were integrated in a unified 3D system. The integration of the two special data collection system provides new opportunities in the development of precision production technology system. The results could be directly used in phytotechnology, water management, plant protection and harvesting in orchards. Our elaborated method can supply digital high spatial accuracy guidance data for development of the automated machines, which could provide some new developmental way in the immediate future.

  • Regional interactions of bioenergy utilization
    159-162
    Views:
    72

    The backwardness of the rural areas compared to the cities poses a problem all over Europe. In Hungary, a relatively small size of the population lives in the capital, more than 80% of Hungarians live in rural cities or villages. The tension between the countryside and the cities is rather intensified and the symbiotic correlation would need to be restored. Many people migrate from the countryside, especially young adults, as they have no opportunities to find a job in their hometowns. This phenomenon poses big risks because getting a job is usually difficult everywhere and because fitting into a new environment always involves a lot of difficulties.

    Non-renewable energies are restricted and they will not be accessible after reaching a certain limit. People’s everyday activities and the functioning of the economy presuppose the availability of the necessary amount of energy. In the future, a solution that provides the longterm stability of energy for the world will become increasingly necessary. There is a huge potential in bioenergy, more specifically in biomass. The building of biomass plants and putting them into operation creates jobs in the rural spatial environments: a locally available resource that can help in creating the energy safety of the country and the reduction of the dependence on import. The production of energy crops or the crops whose purpose of use is energy could help in strengthening the multifunctional character of agriculture and it can represent a source of income for those living off agriculture under the current uncertain conditions.

  • Development of an Agricultural Soil Information System
    60-63
    Views:
    81

    Since the development of remote sensing nearly 60 years ago, there have been many applications for agriculture. Some have proved effective, while others have not succeeded in assisting farmers with problem solving. Recent advances in the spatial, spectral and temporal resolution of remote sensing as well as potential positive changes in cost and availability of remotely sensed data may make it a profitable tool for more farmers. The target area of my research program is the fields cultivated by Kasz-Coop Ltd. considering that this firm is one of the main agricultural firms in the region and its cultivated fields are quite heterogeneous.

  • Drought cycle tracking in Hungary using Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI)
    97-101
    Views:
    326

     Drought is one of the natural hazard risks which badly affects both agricultural and socio-economic sectors. Hungary, which is located in Eastern Europe has been suffering from different drought cycles; therefore, the aim of this study is to analyse the rainfall data obtained from ten metrological stations (Békéscsaba, Budapest, Debrecen, Győr, Kékestető, Miskolc, Pápa, Pécs, Szeged, Siófok, Szolnok) between 1985 and 2016, by using the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI).

    The results showed that 2011 was recorded as the worst drought cycle of the studied period, where the SPI ranged between -0.22 (extreme drought) in Siófok, and 0.15 (no drought) in Miskolc. In a similar vein, the study highlighted the year 2010 to be the best hydrological year, when the SPI reached 0.73 (mildly wet) on average. Interestingly, the Mann-Kendall trend test for the drought cycle showed no positive trends in the study area. Finally, more investigation should be conducted into the climate change spatial drought cycle in Europe.

  • New challenges in soil management
    91-92
    Views:
    227
    Soil management represents two important tasks that are harmonization of the soil protection with demands of the crop to be grown on the given land under prevailing farming condition. Further goals are to preserve and/or develop the soil physical, biological and chemical condition and to avoid the unfavourable changes of the soil biological activity and the soil structure. Classical authors emphasised the importance of creating proper seedbed for plants. In the physical approach, tillage was believed to play an important role in controlling soil processes. Consequently, the period of several centuries dominated by this approach is referred to as the era of crop-oriented tillage (Birkás et al., 2017). The overestimation of the importance of crop requirements resulted in damaging the soils, which inevitably led to turn to the soil-focused tillage. Since the first years of climate change, as the new trends have raised concern, tillage must be turned into a climate-focused effort with the aim of reducing climate-induced stresses through improving soil quality.
    The development of soil management has always been determined by the economical background. At the same time, deteriorating site conditions have contributed to the conception of new tillage trends by forcing producers to find new solutions (e.g. dry farming theory in the past or adaptable tillage theory nowadays). Győrffy (2009) recited the most important keywords were listed in 2001 and that seemed to be important in the future of crop production. These keywords (endeavours) were as follows:
    − Biofarming, organic farming, alternative farming, biodynamic farming, low input sustainable agriculture;
    − Mid-tech farming, sustainable agriculture, soil conservation farming, no till farming, environmentally sound, environmentally friendly, diversity farming;
    − Crop production system, integrated pest management, integrated farming, high-tech farming;
    − Site specific production, site-specific technology, spatial variable technology, satellite farming;
    − Precision farming.
    Győrffy’s prognosis proved to be realistic and the efforts mentioned above have mostly been implemented. New challenges have also appeared in soil management in relation to the last decades. The most important endeavours for the future are:
    1) Preserving climate-induced stresses endangering soils.
    2) Turn to use climate mitigation soil tillage and crop production systems.
    3) Applying soil management methods are adaptable to the different soil moisture content (over dried or wet may be quite common).
    4) Use effectual water conservation tillage.
    5) Use soil condition specific tillage depth and method.
    6) Adapting the water and soil conservation methods in irrigation.
    7) Preserving and improving soil organic matter content by tillage and crop production systems.
    8) Considering that stubble residues are matter for soil protection, humus source and earthworm’ feed.
    9) Site-specific adoption of green manure and cover crops.
    10) Applying site-adopted (precision) fertilization and crop protection. Considering the development in agriculture, new endeavours will occur before long.