Long-Term Land Use Changes Driven by Urbanisation and Their Environmental Effects (Example of Trnava City, Slovakia)

Zita Izakovičová,Peter Mederly,František Petrovič

doi:10.3390/su9091553

Abstract

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.

Highlights

The European Environmental Agency has emphasised urbanisation as one of the major global megatrends with significant impact on world environmental quality [1]
The main aim of our research is to evaluate long-term land use changes in Trnava city and compare them with those in similar cities in Slovakia and adjacent countries
Urbanisation is a complex social, economic, political and technological process, and there are no uniform patterns of this process

Summary

Introduction

The European Environmental Agency has emphasised urbanisation as one of the major global megatrends with significant impact on world environmental quality [1]. The concentration of people in cities promotes negative aspects associated with poverty, traffic problems and environmental degradation [3], and city development imposes qualitative changes focused on strengthening economic, administrative, and cultural-social functions It increases pressure on ecosystems and their individual components including natural resources and land use changes. While land use is determined by the attributes of natural components and comprises a specific proposition for anthropogenic landscape use and creates limits on its utilisation, its final use is determined by societal requirements, demands, abilities and overall land use possibilities These components change over time due to altered human conditions, priorities, ownership and technology, so that goods previously valued as luxuries in the past are considered essential. Each development stage affects specific landscape structural features; where the land use changes reflect phases in government policy, socio-economic development and environmental change [6]

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