Status assessment of Balatonkeresztúri-rétek (Somogy, Hungary): a landscape history and land use based approach

Abstract

The multifaceted study of land-use changes and landscape history helps to understand the actual state of landscapes and habitats. The shore areas of Lake Balaton including the connected marshlands were significantly modified in the last 150 years. The traditional land use has almost completely disappeared from the southern shore areas; however the remnants of valuable wetlands are still represented. Our study area, the Balatonkeresztúri-rétek, is a highlighted nature conservation area and Natura 2000 site. Its land-use changes can represent the shifts of the whole marshland area of the southern shore. In our study the landscape history and the changes in land cover as an indicator of land use were followed up. The changes in land use were analyzed based on the surface covering data of historical maps and recent orthophotos using ArcGIS (ESRI) software. Each habitat of the study area was classified to the appropriate category of ÁNÉR (Hungarian General National Habitat Classification System). The changes in surface cover was compared and rated based on their naturalness status. Our results revealed, that the former, deep situated marshes, which were spotted with open water surfaces were replaced by reed stands characterized with different, mostly degraded status. The remnants of the original marsh vegetation and species have found refuge the pits of canals and peat or clay mines. The terms of existence of the natural vegetation mostly disappeared until nowadays, however some valuable habitats survived in the study area, thanks to the human activities.