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  • Interferences between the ecological network and urbanized areas in Poland
    65-77
    Views:
    26

    This paper presents spatial relations between Polish urban areas and valuable habitats and links
    between them composing the country’s ecological network. The quantitative analysis for 891 towns
    and cities was conducted using GIS techniques based on cartographic vector data and statistical data.
    Valuable habitats and links between them, such as national parks, landscape parks, CORINE biotopes
    sites, wildlife corridors linking NATURA 2000 sites and ECONET areas, can be found in 72% of
    Polish towns and cities. The proportion of artificial surfaces in those areas is different depending on
    the size of a town or city and its location. Urban areas with the highest index of presence of valuable
    habitats and links between them are concentrated in the south of Poland, where settlement network is
    most dense. However, in the case of those areas the proportion of artificial surfaces interfering with
    the ecological network is lower than Poland’s average, being 16%. The pressure of anthropogenic
    land cover extending onto the country’s ecological network is most conspicuous in urban areas with a
    population of at least several dozen thousand residents where the average developed area is 20.8% of
    their total area. The danger for the continuity of the nature system is best seen in the north western
    Poland, where artificial surfaces interference in towns and cities is largest. The analysis performed
    identified 82 towns and cities, in which the preservation of the continuity of the ecological network
    should be a priority in spatial management because of a higher than average index of the presence of
    valuable habitats and links between them and large proportion of artificial surfaces in those areas.

  • A spatio-temporal urban expansion modeling a case study Teheran metropolis, Iran
    10-19
    Views:
    104

    During the past decades, urban growth has been accelerating with the massive immigration of population to cities. Urban population in the world was estimated as 2.9 billion in 2000 and predicted to reach 5.0 billion in 2030. Rapid urbanization and population growth have been a common phenomenon, especially in the developing countries such as Iran. Rapid population growth, environmental changes and improper land use planning practices in the past decades have resulted in environmental deterioration, haphazard landscape development and stress on the ecosystem structure, housing shortages, insufficient infrastructure, and increasing urban climatological and ecological problems. In this study, urban sprawl assessment was implemented using Shannon entropy and then, Artificial Neural Network (ANN) has been adopted for modeling urban growth. Our case study is Tehran Metropolis, capital of Iran. Landsat imageries acquired in 1988, 1999 and 2010 are used. According to the results of sprawl assessment for this city, this city has experienced sprawl between 1988 to 2010. Dataset include distance to roads, distance to green spaces, distance to developed area, slope, number of urban cells in a 3 by 3 neighborhood, distance to fault and elevation. Relative operating characteristic (ROC) method have been used to evaluate the accuracy and performance of the model. The obtained ROC equal to 0.8366.

  • Protected areas in regions of intensive economical activity: conflict of nature protection and nature use (case study of Dovine river catchment)
    43-56
    Views:
    61

    Nature protection and economical activity clash of interests is analysed on the example of Dovinė
    River catchment, situated in the south western part of Lithuania. It is a unique wetland complex consisting from Žuvintas Lake and the surrounding bogs (Fig. 1). Žuvintas Lake became the first protected area in Lithuania in 1937. However, the lake is situated in one of the most fertile region of
    Lithuania, where the methods of intensive farming activity is being employed for a long time. Eutrophication processes and overgrowth of this shallow lake has been very active during the several decades and the lake has lost its ecological value. Therefore the main goal of this article is to analyse the
    anthropogenic influence towards the water bodies and protected natural values situated in the territory
    of intensive economical activity. Cartographical material of different periods is being used for the
    evaluation of the hydrographical network transformations in Dovinė River catchment. Hydrochemical
    parameters of the periods 1953–1954, 1960–1961, 1980–1982; 1993–2003; 2004–2005 of the water
    bodies in Dovinė River catchment are being analysed. The field works in order to investigate the
    water quality in Dovinė River and it‘s tributaries were made in spring of 2005. Water samples were
    analysed in laboratory of the Institute of Geology and Geography according water quality analysis
    methods approved by Lithuanian Ministry of Environment (Table 2). Water quality was evaluated
    according maximum residue limits (MRL) in surface waters (Table 3). The results of the study
    showed that although Žuvintas Lake is being protected for 70 years, the farming activity intensified
    constantly in its catchment. Canalised river beds and sluice–regulated hydrological regime of the
    lakes diminished the natural self–cleaning abilities of the water system. The average annual decrease
    of the lake specular surface was about 1,1 ha in the period of 1961–2003. The average annual increase
    of vegetation area is about 0,14 ha. Even a strong protection regime did not preserve this territory.
    Therefore, in order to keep the sustainable development in the protected territories the anthropogenic
    loading from the neighbouring territories (catchment area, etc) must be evaluated. The objectives of
    nature protection in protected territory could not be attained if there is no regulation of economical
    activity in the territories surrounding the protected area.

  • Boundless settlements – tendencies and future of urban sprawl in the agglomeration of Budapest
    75-88
    Views:
    182

    The Budapest agglomeration is a rapidly changing environment. Urban sprawl has been a prominent process in municipalities around the Hungarian capital, and its pace has significantly increased since the change of regimes. In our paper, we analyse the tendencies of urban development, the role of territorial protection and the types of land use mostly threatened by urban sprawl in two study areas within the Budapest agglomeration. A significant part of the Northern study area – located on Szentendre Island – is under territorial protection, while the Southern study area – located on Csepel Island – has a considerably lower amount of protected areas. We found that the settlements of the Northern study area have been expanding at a much slower pace than their Southern counterparts, where in the absence of effective restrictions, extensive areas – mostly former agricultural fields – have been converted into built-up areas. In addition, the Spatial Plan of the agglomeration allows the same tendencies to continue in both areas in the future as well.