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Landuse/landcover change process in a tropical semi-arid zone: case of two rural communes (Chadakori and Saé-Saboua) in Maradi region, Republic of Niger
1-12Views:196The study aimed to analyze the process of Landuse/Landcover change of two rural communes (Saé Saboua and Chadakori) of Maradi region (Republic of Niger) over the past 28 years (1986 – 2014), through landscape structure analysis by diachronic cartographic approach and landscape indices. Mixed classification of temporal series of Landsat images led to identifying six Landuse/Landcover (LULC) classes, namely ”cultivated land under shrubs and trees”, ”cultivated land under trees”, “continuous cropland”, ”fallow/pasture land”, ”forest reserve”, and ”settlement”. The composition and structure of the studied landscapes have greatly changed from 1986 to 2014. The class ”cultivated land under trees” was the landscape matrix in 1986 with 38.65% of landscape total area but in 2001 and 2014 the class ”continuous cropland” became the landscape matrix. The changes also affected the ”forest reserve” which was transformed to smallholder agricultural land from 1986 to 2014. The area occupied by classes ”cultivated land under trees” changed from 38.65% in 1986 to 8.78% in 2014; and from 1986 to 2014, the area occupied by ”fallow/pasture land” has decreased of about 16%. The decrease in these classes was in favor of ¨continuous crop land¨, ¨settlement¨ and “cultivated land under shrubs and trees” which respectively gained 38%, 0.3% and 8.15% of their areas in 1986. The results of this study reflect the problem of access to land and even land saturation in semi-arid region, a consequence of strong population growth. They also contribute to a better rethinking of agricultural practices in order to initiate adaptation and resilience strategies for the population facing food insecurity and poverty.
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Modelling the effects of long-term urban land use change on the water balance
143-159Views:37The level of land consumption for housing and transport contrasts sharply with both the necessity and the legal obligation to maintain the ecological potential afforded by open spaces to meet the needs of current and future generations in terms of resource protection and climate change. Owing to the increasing intensity of soil usage, in many urban landscapes the soil conditions has deteriorated. The natural filter and run-off regulating functions of soils are impaired or even disappeared altogether by land surfacing. Since such soil functions closely depend on the soil’s biophysical properties, the decline of water balance functionality caused by urbanisation and increasing imperviousness varies. In response to the demand to sustainably secure urban water resources, it needs to be assessed exactly how land surfacing affects the functions concerned. Analysing and evaluating the urban land use change and the respective imperviousness on the long-term water balance ought to improve our general understanding of the water household related impact of urbanisation. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to assess the impact of urban land use change and land surfacing on the long-term water balance over a 130-year trajectory using the example of Leipzig. In particular, attention is to be paid to evapotranspiration, direct runoff and groundwater recharge.
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Time series analysis of major land resources using Landsat images in a part of district Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh, India
41-57Views:19Space born technology, with its repetitive nature, uses electromagnetic energy to capture digital data from the Earth's surface by remote sensing systems. The purpose of this research is to track changes in land resources with six time series (2003-09, 2003-15, 2003-21, 2009-15, 2009-21 and 2015-21) over a period of 18 years. Multi-date Landsat images of 2003, 2009, 2015 and 2021 have been used to monitor the changing pattern. Level – I classification scheme composed by NRSC/ ISRO and supervised Maximum Likelihood Classification (MLC) techniques were used to identify and classify land use/ land cover features located in Jhansi Tehsil. The findings show that there have been significant changes in land resources over the years. The area under agriculture land, built-up and waterbodies were increased by 48.83%, 53.53% and 106.73% while forest/ tree outside forest and wastelands were reduced by 59.74% and 38.68% respectively It is concluded that, the expansion of key land resources indicates the growth in population and socio-economic activities whereas the loss in some land resources might be due to human induced progressive activities.
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Land use changes of the riparian landscape in Hungary between 1990 and 2018
82-95Views:108The protection and the restoration of rivers is one of the most important challenges of our time, due to the impact of human activities. The aim of the research was to assess the land use changes in the Hungarian riparian landscape. Several landscape corridors of different (50-100-300-500 m) widths near rivers were analyzed since 1990, using the CORINE Land Cover database. Positive changes in the land use of riparian landscape can be seen: continuous increase in the case of forest areas; and slight decrease in the extent of agricultural land since 1990. Unfortunately, the extent of grasslands and other near-natural areas is reduced; and there has been a steady increase in built-up areas. Examining the changes in built-up areas in more detail, a big increase is shown by the extent of urban green areas. As a continuation of the research, an evaluation methodology is being developed to determine the restoration potential of urban rivers on study area level and on national level. The results presented in this paper on land use changes and land use conditions can be useful for the research about restoration potential at national level.
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Population an land cover dinamics of Sundarbans impact zone is Bangladesh
1-13Views:205Sundarbans is the largest mangrove forest of the world that lies in Bangladesh and India. This paper examined the correlation among population dynamics of Sundarbans impact zone (SIZ) from 1974 to 2011; impact of climate change on the forest; and changes in land cover of the forest from 1973 to 2010. Population size of SIZ was increased by 1.6 times between 1974 and 2011, whereas decreased by 2% during 2001 to 2011. During 1973 to 2010, water bodies, barren land and vegetated land reduced by 7.35%, 49.56% and 15.92% respectively; while grass land increased by 228.14% during the same period. But both population size and vegetated land declined during 2001 and 2011. This was due to the landfall of two severe cyclones in 2007 and 2009 through Sundarbans which resulted thousands of human casualties and out migration, and destruction of the forest. In addition, anthropogenic interventions like low flow from Ganges River and policy constraints also contributed to the demolition of Sundarbans. Thus, population growth, climate change and anthropogenic interventions are playing a decisive role to the depletion of forest resources from the Sundarbans mangrove forest.
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Specific features of NDVI, NDWI and MNDWI as reflected in land cover categories
194-202Views:946The remote sensing techniques provide a great possibility to analyze the environmental processes in local or global scale. Landsat images with their 30 m resolution are suitable among others for landcover mapping and change monitoring. In this study three spectral indices (NDVI, NDWI, MNDWI) were investigated from the aspect of land cover types: water body (W); plough land (PL); forest (F); vineyard (V); grassland (GL) and built-up areas (BU) using Landsat-7 ETM+ data. The range, the dissimilarities and the correlation of spectral indices were examined. In BU – GL – F categories similar NDVI values were calculated, but the other land cover types differed significantly. The water related indices (NDWI, MNDWI) were more effective (especially the MNDWI) to enhance water features, but the values of other categories ranged from narrower interval. Weak correlation were found among the indices due to the differences caused by the water land cover class. Statistically, most land cover types differed from each other, but in several cases similarities can be found when delineating vegetation with various water content. MNDWI was found as the most effective in highlighting water bodies.
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Land use change detection along the Pravara River basin in Maharashtra, using remote sensing and GIS techniques
71-86Views:62In the past few decades there has been an increasing pressure of population all over the world, especially in India, resulting in the utilization of every available patch of available land from woodlands to badlands. The study area represents a basin which is economically growing fast by converting the fallow lands, badlands and woodlands to agricultural land for the past few decades. IRS (Indian Remote sensing Satellites) 1 C – LISS III and IRS 1 C PAN and IRS P6 – LISS III and IRS 1 D PAN Images were merged to generate imageries with resolution matching to the landscape processes operating in the area. The images of the year 1997, 2000, 2004 and 2007 were analyzed to detect the changes in the landuse and landcover in the past ten years. The analysis reveals that there has been 20% increase in the agricultural area over the past ten years. Built up area also has increased from 1.35% to 6.36% of the area and dense vegetation also has marginally increased. The remarkable increase in the agricultural area occurs owing to the reclaim of the natural ravines and fallow lands. Presently the area looks promising, but it is necessary to understand the sedimentological and geomorphological characteristics of the area before massive invasion on any such landscapes because the benefit may be short lived.
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Prediction of industrial land use using linear regression and mola techniques: A Case Study of Siltara Industrial belt
59-70Views:258The Siltara Industrial belt is an important industrial pocket of Chattisgarh state located in the northern part of the Raipur city, which is rapidly growing. In this process spatial, cultural, political and administrative factors are controlling its rate, direction and pattern. The Simple Linear Regression (SLR) and Multi-Objective Land Allocation (MOLA) techniques, which are embedded in SPSS and Idrisi Kilimanjaro software respectively, and have been used for the estimation of future scenario of the industrial growth. In this model, a suitable platform has been prepared in which future industrialization has been estimated by integrating physical, social, cultural factors and land acquisition policy. In this article, results have revealed that industrialization has occurred very fast during last one decade. The industrial land was 6.15 km2 in 2001 and 18.725 km2 in 2011 and estimated as 31.30 km2 in 2021 and 43.87 km2 in 2031 using SLR. The rapid industrial growth is very critical issues for agrarian society and fresh environment. This model very accurately estimating (overall accuracy=95.39%, Kno=97.24%, agreement=98.63 %) the future growth of industrial land. This work will be useful to the planners and policy makers of private and government sectors to regulate the sustainable planning practices and smart decision-making.
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Big plans and little plans: delivering land use change designed by landscape ecology
68-74Views:44In this paper I describe some of the ways in which landscape ecology principles have been incorporated into land use planning and change. In Scotland we have tried developing landscape-scale or regional plans for land use change to resolve issues of habitat fragmentation – the ‘big plans’ of the title. We have also developed ‘little plans’ – much smaller proposals based on individual designated sites. My conclusion is that both of these approaches are weak in directing land use change at the scale necessary, and that a system which ‘scores’ land manager-generated proposals is a more useful new approach.
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Statistical Indices of Land Use Changes and Nutrients Balance of Tomatoes and Peppers Production in Jordan Valley and Highlands (1999-2019)
65-76Views:199Climate change has caused pressure on water resources in Jordan. This was accompanied by the Syrian refugee crisis during the period 2009 to 2019. This descriptive study was conducted in the University of Debrecen, during the years 2020 and 2021 within the course of sustainable land use by collecting official statistical data from reliable sources in Jordan on the production of tomato, pepper, and paprika during five years 1999, 2004, 2009, 2014 and 2019 to compare the change in land use, crop sown structure, country production, unit area average yield and estimation of unit area pollution with major nutrients. The study showed an increased land used for the production of vegetables by (+ 37.84%) during the period from 2004 to 2014, high productivity per hectare for three crops from 2014 to 2019. Jordan had the highest tomato and paprika crop yields in 2014. The reason is due to the increase in the local and global demand for these crops along with other reasons, which have promoted the use of mass production agricultural techniques, the most important of which is chemical fertilization. Which caused the accumulation of phosphorus and potassium in soils.
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Land use changes and their effect on floodplain aggradation along the Middle-Tisza River, Hungary
1-10Views:65Land-use changes and their effect on overbank sediment accumulation were investigated on the floodplain of Middle-Tisza River. Military survey maps (1783, 1860, 1883 and 1890) and aerial photos (1950, 1965, 1980 and 2000) were used to evaluate land-use changes and to calculate the vegetational roughness of the area. To determinate the rate of overbank sedimentation sediment samples were collected from a pit, the grain-size, content of organic matter, heavy metal content (Pb, Cu, Zn, Ni and Cd) and pH were measured. Until 1950 meadows and pastures were typical on the floodplain, gallery-forest was along the river, the oxbow-lake and the artificial levee. Notable landuse changes were detected in the second half of the 20th century, as the aerial photo taken in 1965 shows extensive forestry in the area. These land-use changes affected the average vegetational roughness, as it has been doubled since the disappearance of grasslands. Land-use changes highly affect the aggradation, as the increased roughness decreases the flood velocity on the floodplain, causing accelerated aggradation. Using Pb marker horizons and grain-size changes the studied sediment profile was compared to dated profiles (Braun et al. 2003), thus, the sediment accumulation rate could be determined for the periods of 1858-1965 and 1965-2005. According to our measurements the accumulation rate was doubled since 1965, very likely in connection with the doubled vegetational roughness.
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Agricultural sector, rural environment and biodiversity in the Central and Eastern European EU member states
46-64Views:27During the second half of the 20th century, agriculture and the rural environment diverged in Western and Central and Eastern European countries (CEEC). CEE countries itself are heterogeneous in the respect of land use intensity and history. In the current review we focus on the comparison of the agricultural sector and threats on biodiversities of EU new-member countries from Central and Eastern Europe and the old EU(15) member states. The clustering of countries revealed groups distinguished according to the level of their economic productivity, discriminating mostly among eastern and western European countries. CEE countries sub-divided according to geographic region, including also some old members of the EU. Within the western cluster, two large sub-clusters became evident according to economy affected by altitudinal and climatic differences. Partly because there are still areas where the intensity of land use remained low, the biological diversity in many regions of Central and Eastern Europe has remained high. However, loss of extensively used habitats, the restoration on intensive agriculture, reforestation with exotic species and urbanization are major threats to nature in CEE countries. The estimated variability among CEE countries is caused by different historical and cultural backgrounds of those countries. Due to the complexity and geographical diversity of driving forces, there remains much uncertainty in the possible impacts of particular factors on land use. This complexity and diversity have to be considered when planning economic as well as ecological means for developing the agricultural sector and conserving biodiversity in the future of CEE countries.
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Spatial distribution of vegetation cover in Erbil city districts using high-resolution Pléiades satellite image
10-22Views:189Green spaces are playing an essential role for ecological balance and for human health in the city as well. They play a fundamental role in providing opportunities for relaxation and enjoying the beauty of nature for the urban population. Therefore, it is important to produce detailed vegetation maps to assist planners in designing strategies for the optimisation of urban ecosystem services and to provide a suitable plan for climate change adaptation in one fast growing city. Hence, this research is an investigation using 0.5 m high-resolution multispectral Pléiades data integrated with GIS data and techniques to detect and evaluate the spatial distribution of vegetation cover in Erbil City. A supervised classification was used to classify different land cover types, and a normalised difference vegetation index (NDVI) was used to retrieve it for the city districts. Moreover, to evaluate the accessibility of green space based on their distance and size, a buffer zone criterion was used. The results indicate that the built-up land coverage is 69% and vegetation land cover is 14%. Regarding NDVI results, the spatial distribution of vegetation cover was various and, in general, the lowest NDVI values were found in the districts located in the city centre. On the other hand, the spatial distribution of vegetation land cover regarding the city districts was non-equal and non-concentric. The newly built districts and the districts far from the Central Business District (CBD) recorded the lowest vegetation cover compared with the older constructed districts. Furthermore, most of the districts have a lack of access to green spaces based on their distance and size. Distance and accessibility of green areas throughout the city are not equally distributed. The majority of the city districts have access to green areas within radius buffer of two kilometres, whereas the lowest accessibility observed for those districts located in the northeast of the city in particular (Xanzad, Brayate, Setaqan and Raperin). Our study is one of the first investigations of decision-making support of the spatial planning in a fast-growing city in Iraq and will have a utilitarian impact on development processes and local and regional planning for Erbil City in the future.
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Transformation of land use pattern in the East Borsod coal basin from the beginning of minig industry to the political changes
223-231Views:200Historical geographic studies on land cover may support the understanding of the recent state. Focusing on coal mining, this process was followed and analyzed in the case of the East Borsod Coal Basin from the early 20th century to the political change. The contemporaneous maps and manuscripts concerning the mining were evaluated using geoinformatic techniques. Moreover, digitalized topographic map coming from the early and late period of mining (1924 and 1989, respectively) were analyzed. To determine the degree of human disturbance hemerobic relations and changes of the given land cover patches were quantified on the basis of the maps of the three military surveys, too. It can be stated that montanogenic subtype of an industrialagricultural landscape has been formed in the Bükkhát area. Beside the concentrated artificial surfaces, however, relative dominance of forest forming the matrix of the landscape remained.
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Studying floodplain roughness in an Upper Tisza study area
85-90Views:180Floods slowing down due to the significant decrease of the gradient have considerable sediment accumulation capacity in the floodplain. The grade of accumulation is further increased if the width of the floodplain is not uniform as water flowing out of the narrow sections diverge and its speed is decreased. Surface roughness in a study area of 492 hectares in the Upper Tisza region was analysed based on CIR (color-infrared) orthophotos from 2007. An NDVI index layer was created first on which object-based image segmentation and threshold-based image classification were performed. The study area is dominated by land cover / land use types (grassland-shrubs, forest) with high roughness values. It was concluded that vegetation activity based analyses on their own are not enough for determining floodplain roughness.
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Remote Sensing and GIS based site suitability analysis for tourism development in Vaishali block, Bihar, India
12-22Views:514Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Remote Sensing are presently recognized generally as an improve instrument for overseeing, breaking down, and showing gigantic volumes of fluctuated information suitable to numerous neighborhood and provincial arranging exercises. Because of the composite idea of the travel industry arranging issues, the planned of GIS in settling these issues is progressively perceived. This paper will think a portion of the conceivable outcomes of GIS applications in the travel industry arranging. For the most part, GIS applications in the travel industry have been tight to recreational office stock, the travel industry situated land the board, and diversion untamed life strife; and have been thin by absence of financing, and awkward techniques. Utilizing the case of site wellness investigation for the travel industry improvement and mapping, this paper features a few uses of GIS in the travel industry arranging in vaishali square, Bihar. According to our present investigation; the most reasonable the travel industry site recognized by the examination is inside significant towns. The urban focus with plausibility to develop into the travel industry focuses. The rest of the land shows a low appropriateness scale because of absence of significant appreciation for make a solid force factor. Availability is an essential for the travel industry advancement. Great street organize availability with closeness to railroads station or air terminal demonstrated solid vacationer potential site, this combined with proximity to grand magnificence delineates high appropriateness. Significant vacation destinations, for example, legacy locales, gardens and water bodies or lake demonstrated high appropriateness. This can be corresponded to the way that legacy destinations and other high appropriate highlights are converted into reasonable the travel industry site.
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Comparative analysis of Landsat TM, ETM+, OLI and EO-1 ALI satellite images at the Tisza-tó area, Hungary
53-62Views:296Satellite images are important information sources of land cover analysis or land cover change monitoring. We used the sensors of four different spacecraft: TM, ETM+, OLI and ALI. We classified the study area using the Maximum Likelihood algorithm and used segmentation techniques for training area selection. We validated the results of all sensors to reveal which one produced the most accurate data. According to our study Landsat 8’s OLI performed the best (96.9%) followed by TM on Landsat 5 (96.2%) and ALI on EO-1 (94.8%) while Landsat 7’s ETM+ had the worst accuracy (86.3%).
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Analysis of the connection between urban land cover and census districts using geoinformatical methods
52-67Views:47Remote sensing resources are usually used in research to better understand urban built-up density, spatial structure and the processes of change. Based on results of image segmentation, landscape metrics indexes, texture and pattern may be analyzed beside the spatial changes in urban reflectance. Social processes within the settlement can be analyzed efficiently, although the census data may also be connected to the urban land cover data through geoinformation systems. On the research project different parameters of urban segments, i.e. patch number, mean patch area, total patch area, total patch perimeter, patch density and edge density, formations that make up the urban pattern were analyzed. Urban functional districts of different built-up density were separated using appropriate indexes, and extending the database with spectral content made it possible to review district boundaries and to mark new boundaries due to these changes.
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Landscape change in Aizawl city: A geospatial approach to assess landscape indices and human-induced transformation
65-81Views:213The change in an area’s natural surroundings is called landscape change. This change may be gradual or accelerated depending on the factors that influence the change. Natural elements such as native animals and birds seldom bring about any modification to the environment. However, human-induced change is devastating and severely transforms the environment. Such environmental transformation can be evaluated with the land use/ land cover assessment through satellite imagery and calculation of landscape indices. This paper attempts to ascertain the direction and the nature of the human-induced change in the city of Aizawl. To this end, the city has been divided into four zones to enable inter-zone comparisons. A northeast and southwest direction of human landscape transformation has been ascertained with the help of GIS and remote sensing techniques and landscape indices in Aizawl city.
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From Surveying to Geomatics
153-160Views:347In the land surveying profession fast changes have been taking place in the last fifty years. Technological changes are generated by the Information and Communication Technologies; the analogue – digital trends; the automatic data acquisition methods replace manual ones; instead of two-dimensional base maps we use dynamic spatial databases more and more integrated into a global data infrastructure. However, these changes cause impacts also on scientific level. The traditional top-down approach substituted by bottom-up methodologies; in many cases the point-by-point measurement is changed by 3D laserscanning or Unmanned Aerial Systems, which produces huge amount of data, but it needs new algorithms for information extraction; instead of a simple data provision land surveyors support complex spatial decisions. The paper is dealing with some aspects of these changes. In the first chapter the authors would like to highlight the “data-information-knowledge” relations and the importance of changes in professional education. The second chapter gives an example of the benefits of a Global Spatial Data Infrastructure in spatial decision support. Finally we introduce a new concept (Building Information Modelling) in modelling the real world. However, until now BIM is used in building construction industry, it can can be a paradigm shift in geospatial information management in general.
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Comparison of soil moisture indices and field measurements in hilly agricultural lands of SW Hungary
50-57Views:251The retention of surface runoff and the preservation of soil moisture are among the most important water-related ecosystem services. In addition to field monitoring, advanced remote sensing techniques have been devised to reveal soil moisture dynamics on agricultural land. In our study we compare two soil moisture indices, TWI and SAVI, in three agricultural areas with different land use types. The SAVI has been found suitable to point out spatial variation on the moisture conditions of the vadose zone.
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Water mining and landscape: study on north-western part of Bankura district, west Bengal, India
48-64Views:114Groundwater depletion occurs when the rate of groundwater extraction is higher than the rate of replenishment. It is unequivocal that the demand for fresh water is ever increasing. The study area lies in the semi-arid climatic zone and it's a solely agrarian society. The water scarcity leads to an impact on soil moisture and soil becomes drier during the dry months. The study is based on the changes in the regional water table which exhibit a relatively rapid response to acute scarcity of water. To specify the soil dryness gravimetric method has been used to study the selected soil samples. The groundwater withdrawal without estimating the water requirement at the regional level leads to soil dryness, and water stress situation to the agrarian economy, and it leaves a direct impact on the land. The perception of the farm owner, that ownership of farmland is synonymous with water mining right from their land leads to stress on the water table.
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Studying the development of fluvial landforms in the Berettyó-Körös Region using geoinformatic methods
137-144Views:158Development of fluvial landforms from 1980 till nowadays was studied based on digital elevation maps (DEM) composed from contour lines of topographic maps, field data obtained by RTK GPS and aerial photos taken by a drone. Greatest denudation of 6-9 metres was measured in the eastern side of the erosional valley at Pocsaj caused by piping and mass movements. As a result, the valley widened and slightly deepened. Since 1980 around 1-2 metres of accumulation and erosion of similar rate have been measured in the secured floodplain environment dissected by abandoned beds, point-bars and swales at Kismarja. These values, however, rather reflect the geometric uncertainties and deficiencies of the contours of topographic maps than real land changes. Therefore topographic maps can give reliable basis for studying the development of lowland landforms only if they depict adequately large sized (minimum 100 x 100 m) positive or negative forms with great height difference as well (minimum 8-10 m). Accuracy of DEMs composed from aerial photos using photogrammetric methods – taking off height faults caused by vegetation – is around the same as that of the models created on the basis of RTK GPS measurements.
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The scenic value of abandoned mining areas in Poland
132-142Views:31Abandoned Polish mining areas are commonly heavily transformed so that they endanger no longer the environment. A disadvantage is that the newly created areas commonly contribute to the monotonous urban-industrial landscape, rather than providing additional value. This is partly due to legislation that hampers a more diversified management of abandoned mining areas as potentially valuable landforms. One of the legal barriers that restricts the possibilities of making these areas more attractive, regards the utilization of remaining exploitation holes (i.e. land depressions of at least 2 m deep, formed as a result of open-pit mining of energy, chemical, building or metallurgical resources) and waste heaps as important cultural and scenic elements. Such a new use of these old mininginduced phenomena is important if it is intended not only to involve the regional population in the process of exploring and exploiting the earth’s resources, but also to confront them with some negative consequences of these activities, including shaping the landscape in which these objects are situated. The current attitude towards a new architecture for abandoned mining areas should be reconsidered; particularly the present-day approach based on narrow specializations – for instance of experts in mineral exploitation, spatial planning or environmental protection – should be replaced by interdisciplinary action regarding shaping the landscape of abandoned mining areas.
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Boundless settlements – tendencies and future of urban sprawl in the agglomeration of Budapest
75-88Views:183The 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.