Abstract
Rural areas have been usually observed through agriculture; however, today, it is broadened with various activities. In Serbia, it has been characterized by unbalanced development, which has led to a declining vitality and depopulation. The main goal of this research is detection of seasonally activated rural areas in Serbia, expressed through the population fluctuation, temporary settlement, or occasional use of residential and economic facilities, and identification of spatial patterns of seasonal use. This research applied an innovative proxy—nighttime lights (NTL)—as a complementary tool to statistical analyses, which are conducted in the GIS environment. The calculation encompassed two seasonality coefficients: one based on the NTL and the second based on statistical data on tourist turnover. The spatial frame applies settlement level and micro level (pixels), while temporal includes monthly values for the period 2015–2019. The obtained results highlight tourist activity as the main cause of seasonal activation of rural areas. The largest seasonal fluctuations were registered in mountain areas and spa resorts. For mountain areas, the highest seasonality is in the winter months (peak—January/February), and lowest is in the summer season. The seasonal character of spa centers indicates the similar trend, generally less pronounced (peak—January), however, with higher seasonality during the summer.
Highlights
Academic Editors: Piotr Prus, MarkoGlobalization is changing and permeating spaces
(15.1% of total settlements in Serbia) were selected, which show a certain degree of seasonality, i.e., in which the obtained Scos value is higher than the established threshold—1.25 (Figure 1)
587 settlements recorded a low seasonality distributed in two months during one year, which represents 85.4% within seasonally active settlements. This group of settlements is highly heterogeneous, in which it is impossible to identify certain spatial patterns of seasonality as well as the causes of their occurrence. This group does not indicate representative seasonality of the rural areas, which led to their exclusion from deeper analysis; this group indicates the spatial spreading of the phenomenon seasonality on particular areas in Serbia
Summary
It produces a territorial transformation and the new trends within economic activities [1]. It is a complex connection and interdependence of localities that reflects the compression of time and space, which in the context of rural areas turn them into a field of permanent change shaped by economic cycles, trade fluctuations, technological innovation, migrations, politics, and environment quality [2]. In the postmodern context, agriculture is gradually being replaced or broadened with different rural activities It could not be considered as the only factor of rural development, nor could concrete rural development be achieved only through the “expropriation from agriculture” [5].
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