South-Moravian Rural Borderland

European Countryside, 2011

Permanent development trends of the South-Moravian landscape are discussed. Four groups of impacts are observed: changes of agricultural using of the landscape, changes from the agricultural to other ways of utilization, stressing the landscape protection and influences of tourism. The changes in agricultural production occur in the less productive areas in the northern part of the region. Big changes were evoked by residential, commercial and industrial suburbanization in the hinterlands of Brno. About 1,300 rural brownfields can be found in the region. Wind power-plants form a new element in the landscape. The landscape protection has increased within EU. South Moravian landscape itself is the main offer for the tourism.

Sustainability, 2022

This article analyzes the question of how the change of geopolitical position in the rural region of Eastern Moravia, which was shifted from the center of the state on its border, is reflected. The paper shows how the originally marginal region transformed from an area with shepherd agriculture to an industrial area with a skilled workforce during the existence of Czechoslovakia and questions how to cope with the consequences of the reverse change into a marginal geopolitical position on the eastern border of Czechia. The paper considers the balance of migration, supplemented by the construction of new dwellings, to be a relatively complex indicator. It states that the region of Eastern Moravia is problematic in terms of further development, except for the northern part, which is affected by the suburbanization of Ostrava. As a result, it proposes to supplement the current orientation toward the manufacturing industry by creating conditions for the development of cultural tourism.

our study is focused on the natural environment significance and potential for the development of a wider region. A special emphasis is put on the geographical category of small towns, which play an important role in stabilizing the population of the Czech Republic. In this context, a key factor of planning in the rural region is the demarcation of a catchment region and the determination of its potential. Natural environment (primary landscape structure) is a basic determinant of area development at all the levels. This paper aims at the natural environment analyses of the small towns in the South Moravian Region, with emphasis on the development opportunities and limitations. In this study, small towns are considered to be all the residential units holding a town status, with the exception of district towns and the city of brno.

Bulletin of Geography. Socio-economic Series, 2016

The paper analyses the problem of a rural region in the peripheral position. Bojkovice micro-region on the Czech (Moravian)-Slovak border has been chosen as a case study. Economic transformation of productive and non-productive branches, demographic development (depopulation and aging) and networking in the area were characterized by using statistical data and field research. Development, understood as improvement in quality of life and not in sense of quantitative growth, is highlighted with regard to the changing perception of the countryside. The question remains: how to use peripherality for prosperity? Peripheral countryside is known as “the right countryside” in comparison to suburbanized and globalized countryside in core regions. Based on the research, production embedded in local sources and traditions, ecological agriculture using the protection of landscape and soft tourism are proposed as solutions. Networking like the association of municipalities, LEADER local action g...

The analysis of changes in landscape use and the related significance of some natural factors is examined in this paper, using three municipal cadastral areas in Moravia, Czech Republic. The relationships between changes in the use of the rural landscape and natural conditions were analyzed with the use of GIS tools and methods of canonical correspondence analysis (CCA). The CCA results showed a correlation between the selected natural factors and landscape changes, with the most significant factors being those of slope and altitude. The CCA models exhibited varying reliability in accounting for the extent of landscape changes related to topographical diversity of the territories. Natural conditions were more influential in periods with lower change dynamics and at the same time in areas with higher topographic heterogeneity. Although the results of the statistical analyses confirmed the significance of natural factors, only a part of land use changes could be explained by their influence. Socio-economic factors are apparently the main forces affecting landscape character and change .

This study is a reflection on the quality of life of the countryside dwellers in the Polish–German borderland. It has been assumed that the assessment made is conditioned by the consequences of changes within the functioning of the state borders. Based on the findings from the research conducted in 1993 and 2010, an analysis of the changes of social reality in the place of the countryside dwellers' residence was made, followed by an attempt to define determinants of the attitude of the countryside dwellers towards given social, economic and political aspects of the reality, as assessed and expressed by them.

Sustainability, 2019

The sustainability of rural areas is considered to be most threatened in peripheral, hardly accessible microregions with insufficient economical sources. The paper analyses one such rural area in the eastern part of Moravia from the viewpoint of individual economic, social, and environmental sustainability pillars. The area under study is the mountain territory on the border with Slovakia, which is under large-scale landscape protection. The area with very limited economic sources has been impacted with a change to the geopolitical situation after 1993 (from the centre of Czechoslovakia to the fringe of Czechia). It was stated that the environmental pillar is in the best of conditions; however, perhaps threatened with missing technical infrastructure in relation to the disposal of solid, liquid, and gaseous waste, the social pillar is improving in relation to the post-productive transition, whereas the economic pillar is the most fragile because of its dependence on exogenous jobs i...

Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment, 2015

It is generally presupposed that the infrastructure and availability of services of general interest (like schools, medical care, social services and also public transport) impact on present demographic development in rural areas, namely depopulation and aging. Such services affect the quality of life of local people and sometimes they perform a vital necessity. It is possible to say that the absence of the mentioned services should be compensated by an effective system of public transport. In other case, especially those people who are not able to use individual cars due to the age, health, legal conditions or financial situation are bequeathed on an assistance of the family or neighbors or they stay cut off and excluded. This paper is aimed at the verification of the presupposition in the case of the South-Moravian Region -NUTS 3 region occupying the south-eastern part of the Czech Republic, bordering with Austria and Slovakia. The research method lies in analysis of the frequency, travel time and fare of public transport system and its comparison with demographic development in rural areas, especially in the peripheral ones. The results are discussed in view of the system of central places in the region and present urbanization processes like suburbanization, counterurbanization and reurbanization.

European Countryside, 2015

The paper deals with the macrostructural and microstructural landscape changes in six selected microregions in Moravia and eastern Bohemia. Changes of the landscape macrostructure were evaluated based on the statistical data from 1845, 1948, 1990 and 2013. Changes of the landscape microstructure were compared on the base of old maps, aerial images and field experiences. According to the available data the area of an arable land was the largest in 1845. Since then it has been decreasing -more in mountain areas, less in lowland ones where it was replaced by forests, grasslands and urban areas, depending on the vegetation period, physical character and vicinity of urban centres. Results show that the microstructure recorded great changes during the communist period: large expanses of fields, irrigation and drainage measures, windbreaks, non-rural buildings in the countryside. Contemporary changes are connected mostly with urbanisation of the landscape. Souhrn: Příspěvek se zabývá změnami makrostruktury a mikrostruktury krajiny v šesti vybraných mikroregionech Moravy a východních Čech. Makrostruktura krajiny byla hodnocena na základě statistických dat za léta 1845, 1948, 1990 a 2013. Změny krajinné mikrostruktury byly srovnány na základě starých map, leteckých fotografií a zkušeností z terénu. Orná půda zaujímala největší plochu v roce 1845. Od té doby jejich rozloha klesá -více na vrchovinách, méně v nížinách. Orná půda je nahrazována lesy, trvalými travními porosty a urbanizovanými územími v závislosti na období, fyzickogeografickém charakteru území a blízkosti urbánních center. Z výsledků srovnání vyplývá, že mikrostruktura zaznamenala velké změny v komunistickém období tvorbou rozsáhlých lánů polí, zavlažovacích a odvodňovacích opatření, větrolamů, nerurálních budov na venkově. Současné změny jsou spojovány hlavně s urbanizací krajiny.

GeoJournal, 1998

A most distinctive feature of the settlement pattern of the Brasov area is the extreme dispersal of mixed farming encountered in the western extreme of the county to the north and south of Zarnesti: the Bran and Poiana Marului areas. Here a system of peasant subsistence farming developed in a political borderland between the Habsburg and Ottoman Empires. Despite feudal pressures, the peasantry took all available opportunities to extend their independence including elaborate transhumance systems. And after seeing transfrontier commerce as a source of plunder, in the tradition of Balkan highway robbery within relatively unregulated spaces, the peasantry has profited through employment in factories, particularly during the communist period. However, the current recession in manufacturing is throwing the rural population back on limited land resources. Although farming assumes an important subsistence role which contributes to stability, the long-term survival of these communities will depend on new sources of income. Rural tourism has considerable potential and a promising start has been made in Bran. There are, however, constraints on the further development of the business and great attention will have to be given to the conservation of the environment in both the Bucegi Mountains and the Piatra Craiului where national park status is proposed.