Distribution of Wood Pastures in Slovakia—Constraints and Potentials for Restoration of Multifunctional Traditional Land Use Form

Abstract

Wood pastures represent specific ecosystems across Europe with diverse ecological, agricultural, and socioeconomic roles. Land-use changes and the cessation of traditional management in conjunction with socioeconomic changes led to shifts in their spatiotemporal distribution. Despite a recent increase in scientific interest, data on historical patterns of wood pastures in many European locations remain insufficient. This study presents wood-pasture habitat continuity and analyzes changes in their distribution over space and time in selected parts of Slovakia. Simultaneously, we analyzed the relation of wood pastures to selected environmental and landscape features. To achieve this, we examined the historical distribution of wood pastures using aerial imagery from the 1950s. We thoroughly examined an area of 16,209 km2 to identify preserved wood pastures. To identify the present conditions and the spatial distribution of wood-pasture habitats, we compared the historical data with recent ortophotomaps. Based on landscape–ecological analyses of historical distribution, we determined prevailing environmental conditions of wood-pasture locations. The findings reveal that over 90% of wood pastures from the first half of the 20th century have now been lost or encroached and preserved in the form of a closed-canopy forest. In most of the encroached sites, we identified the presence of vital core veteran trees. For the identification of wood pastures and further analyses of the environmental variables, the ArcGIS 10.3 program was used; the R software was used for all statistical evaluations. The results show that the studied wood pastures were not established randomly, but were rather set within a certain landscape context, characterized by elevation, soil quality, and distance from settlements.

Business Model Innovation for Sustainable Multifunctional Land Management in Abandoned Rural Areas: A Case Study

“…The concerns found in the recent literature regarding the challenges faced by cornerstones of land ecosystem transformation [19,21] and land abandonment worldwide [7,[20][21][22][23][24] are envisaged by the examined case from different perspectives, firstly composing particular contextual conditions that accelerated the employment of the new-generation entrepreneur's unconventional mindset to apply creativity in business model innovation for abandoned rural areas.…”

“…Huge areas in Europe, especially in the Eastern part, suffer from the planned economy outcomes [9,10]-decades of intensive agricultural activity, resulting in various forms of land degradation [8,[11][12][13], including abandonment [1,[14][15][16]. In such areas, human intervention has already started to restore the marshes, wetlands and woods, with the final aim of saving the planet for future generations [17][18][19]. Other areas, especially after the destroyed socialist-planned economy with huge collective agricultural farms, have become largely abandoned rural areas, which are increasingly useless from a multifunctional land-use point of view [20][21][22].…”

Research on Land Use Versatility Evaluation, Spatiotemporal Coupling, and Influencing Factors Based on Multimethod Integration

“…They have noted that changes in land use functionality can impact regional sustainable development [15]. Qualitative and quantitative studies have been carried out in typical regions, including the Mediterranean area [16,17], central Europe [18], northern Spain [19], North America [20], the northeastern part of South Asia in the Ganges River Basin [21], and the Arctic region [22]. Domestically, scholars have conducted research at various scales, ranging from national and provincial to municipal levels, as well as finer scales, such as land parcels and grid cells.…”