Land use/ cover changes in European mountain areas: global driving forces and local destinies
- Author(s)
- Ziga Malek, Dagmar Schröter, Thomas Glade
- Abstract
Life conditions in mountain areas are defined by remoteness and physical processes
related to gravity, such as landslides, avalanches and rockfall, and other extreme
hydro-meteorological events like flash floods. The consequences of these events
may be exacerbated even by minor land use/cover changes, such as housing on
areas with high risk, or clear cutting a forest on slopes. In order to develop an
advanced understanding on how global driving forces resulted in local land use/cover
changes in European mountain areas, we focus on two particular case study areas:
The Val Canale valley in the Eastern Italian Alps and the Buzau (Sub)Carpathians in
Southeastern Romania. Using applied remote sensing techniques, we analysed land
use/cover changes in the last decades and described them in quantitative terms. As it
is difficult to correlate these changes to global driving forces (e.g. GDP, political
changes in Europe, policy changes), we explored causal relationships between
different driving forces by interviewing a variety of different local and regional
stakeholders. Afterwards we established links between the driving forces, and
described the dynamics of land use/cover changes, instead of focusing only on
individual variables. Being a border area, the Italian area was a commercially very
active area, until the changes in neighboring Yugoslavia and the later introduction of
the Schengen regime. This has caused an abandonment of large army and custom
zones, and consequently the fall of commercial, industrial and mining activities. What
is more, nearly 15 % of the population left in the last 20 years, and altogether this
lead to an abandonment of large parts of the area. European and national traffic and
energy policies since the 1980s resulted in intensive infrastructural development.
Expansion of residential and touristic areas, due to the rapid urbanisation rate,
touristic development and real-estate speculation, occurred also on areas with high
risk and resulted in catastrophic consequences of recent debris flow and flash flood
events. The Romanian area also witnessed profound changes after the political
changes: among others a breakdown of wood processing and mineral-extraction
industries. Large unemployment rates lead to emigration of the vital population,
leaving the elderly and the children behind. The land ownership reforms resulted in
numerous small owners, and together with the poor socio-economic conditions, this
lead to the emergence of subsistence farming and illegal logging. This has intensified
activities on slopes in an area, where over 40% of the land is subject to landslides.
Urbanisation of the population, political changes in Europe, and decisions made at
the national level, seemed to be the most important driving force. In relative terms,
the prevailing process of land use/cover change in both areas is reforestation.
Smaller scale phenomena however, proved to be most significant in terms of
consequences. Therefore we think it is necessary to explore the changes of most
importance on a local scale, as focusing only on relatively largest land use/cover
changes in mountains could result in ignoring the actual issues.- Organisation(s)
- Department of Geography and Regional Research
- External organisation(s)
- Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich
- Pages
- 21
- No. of pages
- 1
- Publication date
- 2013
- Austrian Fields of Science 2012
- 507015 Regional research
- Sustainable Development Goals
- SDG 8 - Decent Work and Economic Growth, SDG 9 - Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure, SDG 10 - Reduced Inequalities, SDG 15 - Life on Land
- Portal url
- https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/695e1424-46c1-440e-bdd8-92ffcd25a280