Monitoring of land cover (LC) provides important information of actual land use (LU) and landscape dynamics. LC research results depend on the size of the area, purpose and applied methodology. CORINE Land Cover (CLC) data is one of the most important sources of LU data from a European perspective. Our research compares official CLC data (third hierarchical level of nomenclature at a scale of 1:100,000) and national statistics (NS) of LU in Slovakia between 2000 and 2018 at national, county, and local levels. The most significant differences occurred in arable land and permanent grassland, which is also related to the recording method and the development of agricultural land management. Due to the abandonment of agricultural areas, a real recorded increase in forest cover due to forest succession was not introduced in the official records of Land register. New modification of CLC methodology for identifying LC classes at a scale of 1:10,000 and fifth hierarchical level of CLC is firstly applied for local case studies representing lowland, basin, and mountain landscape. The size of the least identified and simultaneously recorded area was established at 0.1 ha the minimum width of a polygon was established at 10 m, the minimum recorded width of linear elements such as communications was established at 2 m. The use of the fifth CLC level in the case studies areas generated average boundary density 17.2 km/km2, comparing to the 2.6 km/km2 of the third level. Therefore, when measuring the density of spatial information by the polygon boundary lengths, the fifth level carries 6.6 times more information than the third level. Detailed investigation of LU affords better verification of national statistics data at a local level. This study also contributes to a more detailed recording of the current state of the Central European landscape and its changes.

This paper evaluates land-cover change in the high mountain landscapes of parts of the Tatra Mountains (Western Carpathians, Europe). As well as carrying out a basic analysis of land-cover changes, we compared how these changes related to several abiotic variables and socio-economic influences. We used a geographic information system to analyse aerial images from surveys made in 1955, 1986 and 2010. The areas studied have undergone a number of changes, due most importantly to the establishment of a national park, long-term forestry management, natural disturbances, land abandonment, and the development of tourism. With regard to changes in vegetation cover, it is debatable whether these are related to climate change or to land-use change. Our study revealed two main changes: coniferous forest disturbance, and the expansion of shrubs (Pinus mugo) into the alpine zone. We also observed a slight upward shift of vegetation boundaries for coniferous forest, shrubs and alpine meadows over a period of more than 50 years (1956 to 2010). If we take into consideration (1) that forest ecosystems (and the tree line) have been changed significantly by human influence, and (2) that windstorms provoking outbreaks of spruce bark beetle are not a new phenomenon but more or less periodical in the Tatra Mountains, our results cannot provide clear evidence that climate change is partly responsible for the shift to higher elevations of the boundaries of mountain vegetation.

The aim of the study was to investigate the properties of the metallurgical sludge—waste from nickel production—on the landfill of a former nickel plant in Sereď, Slovakia, in relation to the technosols soil group. The sludge is a loose material which is a toxic industrial technological anthropogenic sediment of an unnatural black colour which originated from the crushing, washing, and leaching of poor iron–nickel lateritic ore in ammoniac solution and other caustics substances. The terrain reconnaissance enabled us to identify the points for the location of the probes. Here we dug seven probes and took 17 samples. In the samples the pH levels, the content of heavy metal and iron TOC, IC, C, and N, and the C:N ratio were determined. This study provides substantial empirical data on the properties of the metallurgical sludge. The results of the analyses clearly demonstrate that the sludge is a strongly alkaline material and contains toxic amounts of heavy metals (Cr, Ni). It is an artefact whose properties are unfavourable to living organisms and their communities. On the basis of the results of the probes analysis we identified the nature of the technosols on the given locality.

This paper presents an attempt to differentiate the Slovak rural landscape with respect to the possibility of effective potato cultivation and to characterise soil parameters of current potato cultivation areas with the aim to increase the sustainability of the potato production. The selection was based on soil climatic, production and economic parameters. By using the GIS tools and existing databases on soil characteristics in Slovakia, maps of soil suitability categories for potato cultivation were generated. In Slovakia, it was found that 12.3% of farmland is very suitable for potato cultivation and that as much as 43.1% is not suitable. Later, the specified categories were characterised in detail and specified with respect to geographic, soil, climatic, production and economic parameters. Currently, most potato crops are cultivated on Cambisols (27%), Chernozems (20%) and Fluvisols (18%). Loamy soils (content of particles <0.01 mm is 30–45%), soils without gravel (gravel content in the depth 0.0–0.6 m is <10%), deep soils (>0.6 m) and soil situated on plains (slope 0°–3°) are dominant in these regions. We suggest that potato cultivation should be concentrated on the most suitable areas, thereby increasing the economic profitability, improving the ecological stability of the country and supporting the sustainability of the agriculture.

The article presents the results of measurements of magnetic properties of samples spolic technosols (alcalic/hyperartefactic) form the landfill of black nickel mud at Sered’, Slovakia. We measured the dependence of magnetic moment as a function of temperatures (240-340 K) and applied magnetic fields up to 7.2 MA/m (90 kOe). We observed at room temperature the tendency to saturation of magnetic moment. The temperature dependences showed possible ferromagnetic behaviour.