Relationship between the character and the changes of the landscape in the Sopron-Fertő area (Hungary)

Abstract

Assessment of landscape dynamics is a prominent topic of landscape research. These studies refer mainly to administrative areas, given the availability of the data and because of the planning areas. Whereas we can often find areas with significantly different character within these administrative boundaries, showing land-cover changes in the opposite direction. According to our hypothesis, the land-cover change assessments of the administrative area units do not reflect those special conversations, that are bound to the landscape character areas. Change tendencies of the mountains, piedmonts, and lowlands, or intensively developing urban and slow-changing rural areas are often opposite. The real measure and weight of the transformations cannot be presented by the summarised statistics of certain study areas, where diverse landscape character units can be found, even though the maps show the main differences Our case study proved that significantly more exact and differentiated results can be gained by the land-cover change detection referring to the landscape character units.