Vegetation-based landscape regions of Hungary

Abstract

The first version of the map of the Hungarian vegetation-based landscape regions were prepared at the scale of 1 : 200,000 (1 km or higher resolution). The primary goal of the map was to provide an exact background for the presentation and evaluation of the data of the MÉTA database. Secondly, we intended to give an up-to-date and detailed vegetation-based division of Hungary with a comprehensive nomenclature of the regions. Regions were primar- 0236-6495/$ 20.00 © 2008 Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest ily defined on the basis of their present zonal vegetation, or their dominant extrazonal or edaphic vegetation. Where this was not possible, abiotic factors that influence the potential vegetation, the flora were taken into consideration, thus, political and economical factors were ignored. All region borders were defined by local expert botanists, mainly based on their field knowledge. The map differs in many features from the currently used, country-wide, flora-or geography-based divisions in many features. We consider our map to be temporary (i.e. a work map), and we plan to refine and improve it after 5 years of testing.

Distribution of the (semi-)natural habitats in Hungary II. Woodlands and shrublands

“…The distribution and the area of each habitat are briefly described in the paper also, including the code, the name and the short description of the habitat, total area of the habitat, area in each geographical macroregion, characteristics of the geographical distribution, main site and land historical factors of the occurrences, and in certain cases the uncertainties of habitat interpretation for the evaluation of the map. We used the inventory of geographical microregions of Hungary (Marosi and Somogyi 1990) for the evaluation of the distributions at landscape scale, since the vegetation-based landscape regions (Molnár et al 2008a) were not yet available at the time of the preparation of this paper. However, at the macro-region scale, the two landscape classifications differ only in an irrelevant measure (Molnár et al 2008a).…”

“…We used the inventory of geographical microregions of Hungary (Marosi and Somogyi 1990) for the evaluation of the distributions at landscape scale, since the vegetation-based landscape regions (Molnár et al 2008a) were not yet available at the time of the preparation of this paper. However, at the macro-region scale, the two landscape classifications differ only in an irrelevant measure (Molnár et al 2008a). For the geographical names used in the discussions of distribution maps see the maps Molnár et al (2008b).…”

“…Since we did not have the capacity to map all the ca 400 plant communities of Hungary, the MÉTA mapping is based on broader habitat types (see the so-called Á-NÉR habitat classification that has 86 types for Hungary, Bölöni et al 2003Bölöni et al , 2007, see also the Appendix of this volume). This paper discusses the woodland and shrub habitats, the previous one tells about the treeless vegetation (Molnár et al 2008a).…”

Delineation of the Pannonian vegetation region

“…It would be therefore useful to use a simpler and more objective method for biogeographic regionalization. Several example indicate that vegetation is suitable for this purpose (Schmithüsen 1968, Schubert 1991, Hegg et al 1993, Bailey 2005, Zhang 2007, Molnár et al 2008a. Dierschke (1994) discussed delimitations based on vegetation and terms such as vegetation sector, vegetation province, vegetation region, etc.…”

“…The biogeographical division of Europe has been completed on the basis of plant communities and vegetation complexes (Schubert 1991). Vegetation-based geographical division of countries into smaller units is available in Switzerland (Hegg et al 1993) and Hungary (Molnár et al 2008a). …”