Long-Term Land Use Changes Driven by Urbanisation and Their Environmental Effects (Example of Trnava City, Slovakia)
1
Institute of Landscape Ecology, Slovak Academy of Sciences, 81438 Bratislava, Slovakia
2
Department of Ecology and Environmental Sciences, Constantine the Philosopher University, 94974 Nitra, Slovakia
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Sustainability 2017, 9(9), 1553; https://doi.org/10.3390/su9091553
Received: 6 June 2017 / Revised: 25 August 2017 / Accepted: 28 August 2017 / Published: 1 September 2017
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Maintaining Ecosystem Services to Support Urban Needs)
Similar to other post-communist countries, Slovakia has undergone significant changes in the last decades—largely through transformation of central planning into a market economy. Unfortunately, this process has been associated with increasing pressure on surrounding ecosystems and their individual components. These changes are subject to various influences, e.g., socio-economic, political and environmental; in addition, urbanisation has also had great influence. This is typified by conversion of productive agricultural land and semi-natural ecosystems into built-up area accompanied by the negative ecological impacts of habitat deterioration and fragmentation. The rapidly changing consumption patterns of luxury living, transportation and leisure have increased the negative consequences on ecosystems and these compound the negative environmental trends. This paper evaluates land use changes in Trnava, which is one of the most rapidly developing cities in Slovakia. Evaluation covers 1838–2015, with explicit emphasis on transformation over the last 25–30 years. We present comparison with developments since 1990 in other cities in Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Germany and then discuss the main processes and environmental problems related to these changes, concentrating on the sustainability of current trends and appropriate planning and management responses.
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Keywords:
urbanisation; urban environment; urban sustainability; land use changes; Trnava city; environmental effects; global megatrends
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MDPI and ACS Style
Izakovičová, Z.; Mederly, P.; Petrovič, F. Long-Term Land Use Changes Driven by Urbanisation and Their Environmental Effects (Example of Trnava City, Slovakia). Sustainability 2017, 9, 1553. https://doi.org/10.3390/su9091553
AMA Style
Izakovičová Z, Mederly P, Petrovič F. Long-Term Land Use Changes Driven by Urbanisation and Their Environmental Effects (Example of Trnava City, Slovakia). Sustainability. 2017; 9(9):1553. https://doi.org/10.3390/su9091553
Chicago/Turabian StyleIzakovičová, Zita, Peter Mederly, and František Petrovič. 2017. "Long-Term Land Use Changes Driven by Urbanisation and Their Environmental Effects (Example of Trnava City, Slovakia)" Sustainability 9, no. 9: 1553. https://doi.org/10.3390/su9091553
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