Land changes in Slovakia: Past processes and future directions

The aim of this study is to bring a unique overview of past, current and plausible future land use development in Slovakia. The study assessed land change processes and their spatial determinants related to the most significant socio-political periods that have shaped the former socialist country over the past 30 years, namely, socialism (1980–1990), postsocialism (1990–2000), EU accession (2000–2006), EU membership (2006–2012). Using boosted regression trees, the impact of different biophysical, socioeconomic, policy and distance-based factors was evaluated on land transitions, categorised as urbanisation, agricultural intensification and extensification, afforestation, deforestation and forest disturbance (natural and management-induced). Results show significant shifts in the landscape management associated with the institutional changes, especially in the postsocialist period.Agricultural intensification, which dominated the socialist period, was in subsequent periods substituted by afforestation and agricultural extensification. High relative annual rates of forest disturbance have dominated land-use change over the past 30 years, while deforestation was a minor land-use change during the late socialist period. Urbanisation has played a significant role and changed considerably through the studied periods: high urbanisation rates under socialism, a massive decline in the postsocialism and EU accession periods and increasingly high urbanisation rates during the EU membership period.Taking into account national and international (EU related) demands, we assessed land use development for 2040 within five different future land use scenarios. These scenarios were characterised as either extensions of current development trends, or as developments along axes that target globalisation or regionalisation, and more or less intervention. Results show that afforestation is by far the land-change process that will have the greatest impact on future Slovakian landscapes, mostly in rural areas. Among changes in agriculture, all scenarios uniformly suggest that extensification will exceed intensification mostly at the cost of arable land. In addition, urban areas will expand at the expense of arable land, particularly in the accessible city hinterlands.     

定量遥感尺度效应刍议

目前定量遥感在面向国家需求、面向基础研究方面,存在海量遥感数据无法有效利用、定量遥感研究缺乏普适性和系统性、遥感应用难以再上新台阶等主要问题。因此,目前的遥感科学研究需要整合,需要向前迈出一大步。由于地表的异质性,我们如果只停留在演绎普适的机理模型在特定地点作个性化的处理,是不能适合地学的应用和研究的。必须在已有的反演和实验数据的基础上,用归纳的方法,总结出一些规律性的东西。走我国自然地理学"自上而下的演绎方法和自下而上归纳方法的结合"研究"尺度综合"的路子,在解决遥感科学核心问题"尺度效应"方面先搭建一个方法框架,同时建立几个开放的相关平台(如数据,反演,计算机模拟,等等),与有关学科的专家共享。     

A review of the ecohydrology discipline: Progress,challenges, and future directions in China

In recent decades,the ecohydrology discipline was developed to provide theoretical and technical foundations for the protection and restoration of complex ecological systems(e.g.,mountains,rivers,forests,farmlands,and lakes),and to further ecological civilization construction and green development in China.In this study,the progress and challenges of the ecohydrology discipline are elaborated,and the future development directions are pro-posed according to international scientific frontiers and national ecological civilization con-struction demands.Overall,the main discipline directions are to develop new ecohydrological monitoring methods,to comprehensively understand ecohydrological mechanisms and their basic theories,to promote integration of multi-scale and multi-variable models by considering both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems,and to encourage multidisciplinary integration,par-ticularly with the social sciences.Furthermore,the future research interests in China include:combining multi-source information,constructing comprehensive monitoring systems,study-ing spatiotemporal patterns of key ecohydrological variables and their variation characteris-tics,developing integrated models of ecological,hydrological,and economic processes,es-timating their uncertainty;and conducting interdisciplinary studies that include the natural and social sciences.The application prospects in China are further explored for a variety of eco-systems,including forests,grasslands,rivers,lakes,wetlands,farmlands,and cities.This study will provide a reference to support the development of the ecohydrology discipline in China,and will provide a solid theoretical and technical foundation for the implementation of national ecological civilization construction.     

Mangrove forest dynamics in Tanintharyi,Myanmar from 1989–2014, and the role of future economic and political developments

Mangrove forests in Southeast Asia provide many ecosystem services, though are experiencing extensive deforestation, especially in Myanmar. Recent political and economic reforms in Myanmar are projected to further increase development pressures on natural resources. Mangrove forests in the southern state of Tanintharyi have largely been spared clearance because of poor infrastructure and a volatile security situation, though this may change with plans for economic expansion. We quantified land cover dynamics and proximate drivers of mangrove deforestation in Tanintharyi between 1989 and 2014 using a remote sensing approach over five time intervals. Tanintharyi experienced low mangrove cover loss overall, as compared with other regions of Myanmar, with 3.2 per cent being deforested over 25 years. However, this statistic hides large site‐specific losses and gains, which varied significantly within the study area. Myeik district lost 210 km² of mangrove over 25 years, but also gained 132 km². Dawei and Kawthung had minimal net loss of mangroves because of extensive mangrove regeneration. This historical mangrove baseline is essential for supporting environmentally‐conscious development in Myanmar's southernmost state.     

广东省区域经济差异的方向及影响机制

区域差异已成为中国经济高速增长背后的一大隐忧,如何实现区域经济协调发展是中国经济社会发展的核心议题,也是近年来国内外研究的热点命题。基于“最优尺度-总体趋势-差异方向-机制因素”的框架,综合运用传统总体差异指数、尺度方差及其分解、特定方向差异指数（PDI 指数）和多水平回归分析对1978-2011 年广东省区域经济差异进行了综合测度和分析。研究表明：① 尺度方差及其构成大小依次排列为县级、地级和区级,即尺度越小,尺度方差越大,对区域经济差异的贡献份额也越大。② 自改革开放以来,广东区域经济总体差异呈增大趋势,并出现波动性变化。③ 广东区域经济空间差异的主要方向是珠三角核心区与边缘地区之间,核心区与边缘区的差距扩大,省内沿海地区与内陆地区的差异微弱上升,市区与外围区的差异缩小。④ 全球化、简政放权、投资水平和市场化是导致区域经济差异的最重要的四个机制因素;全球化和投资是促进区域经济差异加剧的重要直接驱动力,简政放权则间接促进了区域经济差异的变大,而市场化能够潜在地促进区域平衡发展,缓和区域经济差异。     

Status, directions and priorities of reindeer husbandry research in Sweden

Emerging out of small-scale reindeer farming, large-scale reindeer husbandry in Sweden and Norway was developed to counteract resource scarcity caused by depleted wild reindeer numbers and human population growth above what the former subsistence economy could sustain. Current numbers of reindeer are likely lower and fluctuate less than before wild reindeer were depleted and reindeer husbandry started on a large scale. Productivity is about 7-8 kg of meat per head in winter stock. Current problems arise from a multitude of circumstances, some of them related to the problems of practising a subsistence type of living in close connection with a modern industrialized society. Problems include: low production, typical for harsh conditions and use of an unimproved animal stock; the inability to support a modern standard of living solely from reindeer; the collective access to grazing grounds which makes internal management difficult; unclear legal rights resulting in conflicting interests with other land users and formal owners; and the relatively low number of people directly involved in reindeer husbandry. Possible long-term consequences are marginalization and the loss of land use rights, with negative consequences for the Saami as an indigenous people. Reindeer husbandry research addresses these problems by integrating human-ecological and socio-economic aspects with traditional natural science orientated research on reindeer husbandry problems. This research is funded by a multitude of sources. Independently of this, research is conducted on Saami life and culture in relation to reindeer husbandry at various universities, especially within social sciences and arts.     

The environmental protection of landscapes in the high semiarid Mediterranean mountain of Sierra Nevada National Park (Spain): Historical evolution and future perspectives

Sierra Nevada is a protected mountain in the Iberian Peninsula classified as a Biosphere Reserve (1986), Natural Park (1989) and National Park (1999). All these environmental protection programmers are a consequence of its unique landscape in the context of the mid-latitude semiarid mountains, with enclaves of exceptional scientific and cultural value. Thanks to its high altitude, Sierra Nevada held the southernmost Quaternary glaciers in Europe, as well as it happened during the Little Ice Age. In turn, Sierra Nevada is also singular thanks to its vast cultural heritage, since very early societies settled on its slopes and valleys and accommodate their lifestyles and economy to the characteristics of this mountain environment. Currently, Sierra Nevada has become an important tourist centre and receives a large amount of visitors. This process of change has conditioned the implementation of a different economic model: it brings benefits to the populations but it involves changes in the landscape as well, sometimes questionable. From this perspective, a critical revision of the legislation is required balancing the sustainable economic development of the population and the preservation and safeguarding of the heritage values of the landscape. With this goal, we suggest creating and implementing the Sites of Geomorphological Interest.     

A comparison of neighbourhood relations based on ordinary Delaunay diagrams and area Delaunay diagrams: an application to define the neighbourhood relations of buildings

ABSTRACT

The aim of this article is to describe a convenient but robust method for defining neighbourhood relations among buildings based on ordinary Delaunay diagrams (ODDs) and area Delaunay diagrams (ADDs). ODDs and ADDs are defined as a set of edges connecting the generators of adjacent ordinary Voronoi cells (points representing centroids of building polygons) and a set of edges connecting two centroids of building polygons, which are the generators of adjacent area Voronoi cells, respectively. Although ADDs are more robust than ODDs, computation time of ODDs is shorter than that of ADDs (the order of their computation time complexity is O(nlogn)). If ODDs can approximate ADDs with a certain degree of accuracy, the former can be used as an alternative. Therefore, we computed the ratio of the number of ADD edges to that of ODD edges overlapping ADDs at building and regional scales. The results indicate that: (1) for approximately 60% of all buildings, ODDs can exactly overlap ADDs with extra ODD edges; (2) at a regional scale, ODDs can overlap approximately 90% of ADDs with 10% extra ODD edges; and (3) focusing on judging errors, although ADDs are more accurate than ODDs, the difference is only approximately 1%.     

Guest Editorial Latest developments in GIS/LIS

Abstract

Significant achievements have taken place in Geographical/Land Information Systems (GIS/LIS). An attempt is made to give an overview of the state of the art as well as a vision of progress still to be accomplished. Key issues are discussed in various GIS/LIS activities. A generic analysis shows that most of the applications are environment-oriented. The various GIS/LIS topical issues are discussed in the order of an ascending graph, including data capture, data structure and modelling, data quality and standards, institutions, ethics, education, visualization and interface, spatial decision support systems, and applications. Finally a brief assessment of the role and nature of GIS is made. It is noted, in particular, that there are great discrepancies in the spread and success of GIS/LIS at the international level. This is true between developed and developing countries, but the case can also be made between western industrialized countries. It is also observed that there is an increasing number of professions involved in GIS/LIS activities and an increasing collaboration between those professions. Finally, it is observed that GIS/LIS are used predominantly as a tool to manage and keep records, although there are signs that GIS/LIS are also leading the way towards a new spatial science. This is only a 1993 ‘snap shot’, and is expected that many of the statements have only a limited life, considering the rapid changes in both theory and technology.