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Books and selected chapters
Lehotský, M., Boltižiar, M. (eds.)
LANDSCAPES AND LANDFORMS OF SLOVAKIA
Springer 2022, 467 s.
A book LANDSCAPES AND LANDFORMS OF SLOVAKIA has been published in recent days.
The book “Landscapes and Landforms of Slovakia” is the first publication published in a world-renowned publishing house providing a view of the landscape units of Slovakia in terms of their characteristic landforms. Relying on current geomorphological research and using knowledge gained in the past, it presents a wealth of geomorphological aspects of the Slovak landscapes. In addition to the presentation of scientific knowledge, the monograph is richly illustrated with pictures, diagrams and graphs, which also allows the reader “non-expert” to get a picture of the geomorphological scenery of Slovakia. The book is the result of the cooperation of geomorphologists, geologists, speleologists and climatologists. The monograph was attended by 43 authors from 14 research centres, including the Slovak Academy of Sciences, Slovak and foreign universities and government institutes under the leadership of the main editor RNDr. Milan Lehotský, PhD., an employee of the Institute of Geography of the Slovak Academy of Sciences. (more…)
Šveda, M., Výbošťok, J., Gurňák, D.
ATLAS OF SUBURBANIZATION OF BRATISLAVA
Institute of Geography SAS 2021, 120 s.
The Atlas of Suburbanization of Bratislava presents suburbanisation in the hinterland of Bratislava in a set of 45 topics processed in maps, graphs and supplementary text. Bratislava’s suburbanisation is one of the most dynamic processes in the modern history of Slovakia. Suburbanisation is, generally, a process of population and economic growth in the hinterland of cities. Living “outside the city” attracts an increasing number of people trying to find quality and affordable housing for residents who want to live in a family house but still be close to the city. However, the arrival of new residents to the hinterland is bringing several changes, and once quiet suburban communities are gradually becoming fast-growing ‘suburbs’. The Atlas presents this process from different perspectives and documents the transformation of Bratislava’s hinterland through various visualisations. In addition to traditional thematic maps, the Atlas presents numerous innovative spatial data visualisations.
Feranec, J., Oťahel, J., Kopecká, M., Nováček, J., Pazúr, R. (aut.) / Petrovič, J., Kolář, J. (eds.)
LAND COVER OF SLOVAKIA AND ITS CHANGE IN 1990-2012
Veda, 2018, 160 s.
CLC data became a valuable source of original information for those interested in knowing the landscape of Slovakia and its dynamism. Their content wise compatibility and time sequence make it possible to analyse and assess changes of land cover and thus observe the heterogeneous structure and more than 20-year development of Slovakia’s landscape.
Individual parts of the monograph describe CLC projects regarding the application of satellite data. Methodology of generation of four data layers, particularly CLC 1990, CLC 2000, CLC 2006 and CLC 2012, as well as assessments of their precision and generation of three change layers i.e. CLC1990-2000, CLC2000-2006 and CLC2006-2012 are demonstrated in an easy-to-follow manner. The CLC 2012 data reveal that forest in Slovakia covers 40.8 % of the country’s overall area (broadleaved, coniferous, and mixed forest account for 22.1%, 9.8% and 8.9% respectively), 32.9% corresponds to arable land, built-up residential areas along with industrial, commercial, transport and servicing areas occupy 5.5%, while the share of the surface water area is 0.7%. Time-spatial characteristics about changes of land cover for more than two decades indicate the increasing trend in deforestation, decreasing trend in forestation (identified changes of forest landscape by means of CLC data have to be compared with the assessments of foresters, as they apply a different approach, see Chapter – 3.2), intensification of agriculture, construction of water reservoirs, and a mixed trend of the developments in urbanisation, and other changes. Supposedly, the development of environmental activities in future will attribute even greater significance to the obtained knowledge about land cover and its changes. Part of the monograph also brings examples of possible solutions to environmental issues in Slovakia by application of CLC data (for instance, landscape fragmentation and abandonment of farmland).
The final part of the monograph is dedicated to a brief outline of the prospects for tracking the development of land cover in Slovakia in future in accord with the European activities in this field.
Feranec J., Soukup T., Taff N. G., Štych P., Bičík I.:
Overview of changes in land use and land cover in Eastern Europe in: GUTMAN G., RADELLOFF V.: LAND- COVER AND LAND-USE CHANGES IN EASTERN EUROPE AFTER THE COLLAPSE OF THE SOVIET UNION 1991.
Springer 2017, pp. 13-33.
This chapter presents an analysis of land cover changes in Eastern Europe between 1990 and 2006, assessed using CORINE (Co-ORdination of INformation on the Environment) Land Cover (CLC) datasets. The plethora of potential land cover change categories were condensed into seven categories of major land use change processes: urbanization, agricultural intensification, agricultural extensification, afforestation, deforestation, construction and management of water bodies, and other changes. The amounts of each change category and their spatial distributions are summarized, and the change categories were also mapped to show the relative amounts of change (per 3 × 3 km 2 ) between 1990 and 2000 and between 2000 and 2006. The results showed that while more afforestation than deforestation was observed in the first period, the reverse was true in the second period, when deforestation outpaced afforestation. Urbanization and suburbanization were major processes in Eastern Europe, particularly around existing major cities, and the speed of this process generally increased from the first to the second period. Both the intensification and extensification of agriculture were common during both periods, but a larger effect was observed in the first period. Overall, land use changes were highest in central Europe and the Baltic countries and lowest in southeast Europe.
Sládeková Madajová, M. Hurbánek, P.
AREAL TRANSFORMATION OF GEOGRAPHICAL DATA: PRINCIPLES, METHODS AND APPLICATION.
Geografický ústav, 2016, 112 s.
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Geographers face several obstacles in the analysis of developments and processes in individual regions which make impossible a correct analysis, direct comparison or a combination of data from different sources. The territorial units, data are available for, may vary over time or in many cases it is necessary to analyse the data in other areas than currently available administrative / statistical units. A problem of spatial discrepancy is frequent especially in interdisciplinary research, where quality integration of data from various sources (demographic, economic, social, environmental, etc.) using different spatial divisions of geographical space is a common task. The transfer of data from one geography into another is among the needy in Slovak literature however still underdeveloped themes. The paper therefore aims to introduce the issue of areal transformation of geographic data more detailed, to explain its principles, summarize, describe and classify different approaches and methods enabling data transfer and estimation from one system of geographical units to another (modified or completely different) zonal system, to apply the selected interpolation methods and to compare their accuracy in Slovak conditions. The performance of traditional areal interpolation method – areal weighting – was compared with the approaches, which use auxiliary information to improve the results of interpolation process. The testing suggests that the accuracy of areal interpolation is influenced by the shape/size of the source and target zones. The results confirm that the methods using ancillary information are able to make more accurate estimation but only to the extent, to which these additional data reflect (or correlate with) the spatial distribution of the estimated variable.
Rosina, K. Hurbánek, P.
SPATIAL DISAGGREGATION OF POPULATION DENSITY USING LAND COVER AND REMOTE SENSING DATA.
Institute of Geography SAS, 2016, 81 P.
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Researchers in geography and other fields of research and practice (decision making, spatial planning, and emergency response among others) often need to analyze population data using areal units that are incompatible with available reporting areal units, or finer spatial detail of information on population distribution is required. Areal interpolation methods can be employed to estimate the data for target zones or to disaggregate the available data into a regular grid with fine spatial resolution. Such grids can be in turn used to approximate arbitrary polygons, thus being useful to a wide range of users. The monograph describes the production of a gridded model of population distribution with a spatial resolution of 100 m by disaggregation of municipality-level population counts using open-access ancillary spatial data (CORINE land cover, high-resolution imperviousness layer, road and rail networks from OpenStreetMap project). The aim of the work was to improve an existing method of intelligent spatial disaggregation and to investigate how certain parameters of the method influence the estimation accuracy.
Feranec, J. Soukup, T. Hazeu, G. Jaffrain, G. (eds.)
EUROPEAN LANDSCAPE DYNAMICS: CORINE LAND COVER DATA.
CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group, 2016, 337 p.
Four unique all-European sets of CORINE Land Cover, that is, CLC1990, CLC2000, CLC2006, and CLC2012, offer the opportunity to observe the European landscape by means of land cover and its change. It is precisely what this book contains: methodology of identification, analyses and assessment of land cover of Europe and its changes over four time horizons. Also examples are presented in which CLC data plays a role in offering solutions to European environmental problems such as the monitoring of urban dynamics, land fragmentation, ecosystems mapping and assessment, high nature value farmland characteristic, etc.
As the existing environmental problems require new approaches, the authors of the book made a point of outlooks for the CLC data generation with more detailed levels (for scales larger than 1:100 000), bottom-up approaches and the relationship of CLC data to the Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe (INSPIRE).
Michálek, A. – Podolák, P. et al.
REGIÓNY CHUDOBY NA SLOVENSKU / POVERTY REGIONS IN SLOVAKIA
Institute of Geography SAS, 2016.
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Poverty is a complicated phenomenon with many manifestations, contexts, dimensions, and aspects. One of the most important dimensions of poverty is space, which greatly influences all its important attributes: the level, depth, duration, nature, traits and other. The monograph treats the space as one of important attributes and determinants of poverty and its different quantitative and qualitative characteristics. It represents the “geographical” alternative of the economic and sociological interpretation of poverty. (more…)
Kopecká, M., Rosina, K., Oťaheľ, J., Ferenec, J., Pazúr, R. a Nováček, J.
MONITORING DYNAMIKY ZASTAVANÝCH AREÁLOV / MONITORING THE DYNAMICS OF BUILT-UP AREAS
Institute of Geography SAS, 2015, 98 pages.
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The monograph presents the up-to-date trends in monitoring of built-up areas using remote sensing data at various levels of spatial and thematic resolution. It points to the differences between databases of built-up areas in terms of the way of data collection, definition of classes and the mapping scale. It quantifies the changes of urban fabric and their effect on landscape fragmentation in selected territories and documents the possibilities of cartographic representation of changes in urbanised landscape.
Šuška, Pavel
AKTÍVNE OBČIANSTVO A POLITIKA PREMIEN MESTSKÉHO PROSTREDIA V POSTSOCIALISICKEJ BRATISLAVE / ACTIVE CITIZENSHIP AND THE POLICY OF THE URBAN ENVIRONMENT CHANGE IN THE POST-SOCIALIST BRATISLAVA
Geografický ústav, 2014, 147 pages.
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This monograph deals with the specific parameter of local government in the sphere of built-up area change in Bratislava in the second decade of the post-socialist transition. Governance is interpreted as the results of conditions and relationships created by power positions and capacities, or exploitation of such capacities, of stakeholders. Analysed conflicts between the different publicly formulated ideas of future foreseen for the particular localities based on the different value orientation of the participating actors (capital, public administration and civic society) provide the picture of the existing relationships in urban governance. (more…)
Michálek, A. – Podolák, P. (editors)
REGIONÁLNE A PRIESTOROVÉ DISPARITY NA SLOVENSKU, ICH VÝVOJ V OSTATNOM DESAŤROČÍ, SÚČASNÝ STAV A KONZEKVENCIE / REGIONAL AND SPATIAL DISPARITIES IN SLOVAKIA. DEVELOPMENT IN THE LAST DECADE, THE PRESENT STATE, AND THE CONSEQUENCES
Geografický ústav, 2014, 212 pages.
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Implementation of the regional convergence policy may invoke questions connected with the appropriate selection of tools and further guidance of regional development. Geographical analysis may provide some relevant knowledge of the relationships between individual factors in spatial context in the search of solutions to this complicated issue. Problems connected or determined by the increasing disparities and lagging of some regions are highly topical. (more…)
Dénes, Lóczy (editor)
GEOMORPHOLOGICAL IMPACTS OF EXTREME WEATHER
Springer Geography, 2013, 147 pages.
Global climate change does not manifest itself only in different average temperature and rainfall totals but also in the increasing frequency and intensity of extreme climatic phenomena. Extreme rains are connected with the processes, which form the Earth surface with the repercussion in society’s life and management of its environment. The book brings an up-to-date overview of the present research of short- and long-term geomorphological consequences of extreme hydrological and precipitation events in eastern part of Central Europe. (more…)
Feranec, Ján (editor)
MENIACE SA SLOVENSKO OČAMI SATELITOV / SATELLITE’S-EYE VIEW OF CHANGING SLOVAKIA
Veda, 2013, 74 pages. + DVD disc
The nowadays-used information technologies have dramatically improved the options for the visualisation of changes and processes ongoing in landscape. The way satellites scan Earth and its close surroundings in regular intervals offers time-series of data, which capture changes of landscape objects and their properties if any. The aim of the book and DVD Satellite’s-eye view of changing Slovakia is to use such time-series of satellite data and computer animations to represent the changes of landscape objects and their properties, as well as the deformations of Earth surface in time and space, changes in atmosphere and hydrosphere, those in cosmic energy particles and the solid components of interplanetary matter. (more…)
Więckowski, M., Michniak, D., Bednarek-Szczepańska, M., Chrenka, B., Ira, V., Komornicki, T., Rosik, P., Stępniak, M., Székely, V., Śleszyński, P., Świątek, D., Wiśniewski, R. (eds.)
POLISH-SLOVAK BORDERLAND: TRANSPORT ACCESSIBILITY AND TOURISM
Warszawa: Institute of Geography and Spatial Organization Polish Academy of Sciences, 2012, 323 pp.
The scientific monograph has been published in the framework of the Polish-Slovak project titled Infrastructural and organizational possibilities of spatial accessibility improvement as a factor for the development of the Polish-Slovak tourist regions (INFRAREGTUR) and summarizes the results of scientific analysis within the project. Project No. WTSL.02.01.00-14-087/08 was co-financed by the European Union from the European Regional Development Fund and the state budget within the Cross-Border cooperation Programme Poland – Slovak Republic 2007-2013. The authors of the monograph are workers of the project partners (Institute of Geography and Spatial Organisation, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw and the Institute of Geography, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava). (more…)
Giri, Chandra P. (editor)
REMOTE SENSING OF LAND USE AND LAND COVER: PRINCIPLES AND APPLICATIONS
CRC Press, 2012, 477 pages.
Filling the need for a comprehensive book that covers both theory and application, Remote Sensing of Land Use and Land Cover: Principles and Applications provides a synopsis of how remote sensing can be used for land-cover characterization, mapping, and monitoring from the local to the global scale. With contributions by leading scientists from around the world, this well-structured volume offers an international perspective on the science, technologies, applications, and future needs of remote sensing of land cover and land use. (more…)
Lóczy, D. – Stankoviansky, M. – Kotarba, A. (eds.)
RECENT LANDFORM EVOLUTION: THE CARPATHO-BALKAN-DINARIC REGION
Springer, 2012, 460 pp.
The Carpatho-Balkan Commission and the International Association of Geomorphologists (IAG) Carpatho-Balkan-Dinaric Regional Working Group, promote networking between researchers and the exchange of research experiences. Following a brief introduction into the geology, climatology and land cover of the Carpatho-Balkan-Dinaric region, the book provides detailed information on research applying both traditional and innovative techniques and summarizes contemporary knowledge on recent geomorphic processes. (more…)
Ira, V. – Podolák, P. (eds.)
SETTLEMENT STRUCTURE OF SLOVAKIA (DIFFERENTIATIONS IN TIME AND SPACE): GEOGRAPHIA SLOVACA 27
Bratislava, Institute of Geography SAS, 2010, 172 pp.
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The monograph presents partial results of the APVV – 0772-07 Project The Present Status and Developmental Outlooks for the Settlement Structure of Slovakia (Socio-Spatial Aspects of the Urban-Rural Complementarity) worked on by the Institute of Sociology SAS with the participation of a team from the Institute of Geography SAS in 2008-2010. Spatial analysis of social and environmental infrastructures, temporal and territorial aspects of urban population migration to city hinterlands, the impact of suburbanising processes on urban and rural population, changes of the architectural characteristic of settlements and other addressed issues represent only a part of the multifaceted and complex process of the development of settlement structure in Slovakia. (more…)
Žudel, Juraj
SETTLEMENT OF SLOVAKIA IN THE LATE MIDDLE AGES
Bratislava, Veda, 2010, 320 pp.
The intention to process the settlement of Slovakia in the late Middle Ages has been inspired by the work on the national atlas (Atlas Slovenskej socialistickej republiky published in 1980). A genetic aspect was applied to the conception of the mentioned Atlas as demonstrated by the inclusion of the themes concerning the development of the settlement and territorial organization of Slovakia since the oldest times.
The subject of this monograph is the medieval settlement of the territory within the modern boundaries of the Slovak Republic, the result of the 20th-century political developments. (more…)