The main aim of the research is to identify landscape fragmentation (LF) in Slovakia with special emphasis on the contribution of protected areas (PAs) to mitigate the effect of LF. Results are ...presented in the final raster output (10 m grid). The raster contains 490,321,151 individual 10 m raster grids, with the LF average value of 59.12 % (where 0 represents fragmented landscape, 100 represents fully connected landscape by natural or semi-natural ecosystems) on the national level. Most of the territory of Slovakia falls within the range of values 55 – 65 %, which confirms the presence of significant continuous unfragmented areas. Based on the Ordinary Least Square (OLS) statistics results, there is a positive correlation of lower LF within the PAs network (p < 0.05, Table 1) in comparison to the unprotected part of Slovakia. The results of geographically weight regression (GWR) proved a medium positive correlation (r2=0.36; r2adj=0.36; n=49,003), thus confirming to a certain extent the role of PAs in the mitigation of the effect of LF. On the other hand, the level of protection does not correlate significantly with fragmentation values, where a higher level of protection is not significantly connected with a lower level of LF. For each category of PA, individual statistics of quality and quantity of LF are estimated and subsequently compared with unprotected parts of Slovakia. The comparison of all PAs with each other resulted in 1,132 unique assessments. The overall average value of LF of unprotected parts is still rather high (56.42 %) and it shows that there are still significant areas existing, which are situated in unprotected parts of the country. Spatial analysis revealed, that these important parts are covering 93,065 hectares, and are variously spread across the whole of Slovakia. The average value of LF for these newly identified areas is 68.5 %. As output, the results of this research present a comprehensive national map of the level of LF and lists of PAs ranked according to the overall assessment of LF.
Ecosystems in Slovakia Černecký, Ján; Gajdoš, Peter; Špulerová, Jana ...
Journal of maps,
12/2020, Letnik:
16, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
The authors have prepared a detailed map of Slovakia's ecosystems, which identifies individual ecosystems and their spatial distribution, status, and selected properties. The impetus for the ...production of this map is the need of various stakeholders, especially nature protection bodies, forestry management, agricultural management and public administration, for better data on the distribution of ecosystems. The methodology mostly involves using GIS analytical tools to combine datasets on nature protection, forestry, and agriculture which list attributes related to habitat identification. The results can be used for ecosystem services assessment, spatial planning, nature protection analysis, and other related purposes. The spatial precision of the data is determined by that of the field data, which was mostly created at scales between 1:10000 and 1:5000. The data are stored in the form of a geodatabase containing more than 1,000,000 polygons.
The main aim of this article is to summarise data on the biology and conservation of the Western Palaearctic planorbid gastropod Anisus vorticulus (Troschel, 1834). This aquatic gastropod is a ...threatened species at European level and endangered species in Slovakia according to IUCN red list classification. This paper also deals with comprehensive data on the species distribution in Slovakia between 1953 and 2019. According to the Habitat Directive, Slovakia realised regular monitoring of the species at 10 permanent monitoring plots and established 11 sites of community interest (SCI) within the NATURA 2000 network exclusively for its protection. In results, there are monitoring assessments available as well as the overall assessment of the species conservation status. In the last twenty years, Anisus vorticulus has been confirmed in Slovakia at 23 sites. The most recent research shows that the species prefers small and old drainage ditches (36% out of all its sites) and plesiopotamal channels, flooded by surface water only at a high water table levels (25% of sites). To a lesser extent, the species also inhabits stagnant water bodies which are not in contact with surface floods (i.e. paleopotamal; 16% of sites).
This article provides an overview and results of the pilot national ecosystem services assessment in Slovakia. It follows the MAES process and past ecosystem services (ES) research in Slovakia and is ...based on original research methodology using spatial and statistical data. The initial step of national ES assessment resulted in the selection of significant ES for the evaluation process, where 18 ES in three groups were selected (five provisioning, 10 regulatory/maintenance and three cultural ES). An original assessment model provided the theoretical and methodological framework for national ES evaluation. The principal result is an assessment of the national landscape’s capacity for ES provision, based on evaluation of the landscape units and selected properties and indicators at the ecosystem level. These inputs included habitat types and watersheds, administrative units, natural topology, geology, soils, climate, water and biota. The ES capacity models were created and evaluated for each ES, for the main groups and, finally, for overall ES provision. The highest capacity to provide ES in Slovakia comes from natural and semi-natural ecosystems, mainly deciduous, mixed and coniferous forests which cover over 38% of Slovak territory. The water ecosystems and wetlands are also significant, followed by grasslands and permanent crops. The research highlights the crucial importance of the mountainous and sub-mountainous areas in Slovakia and confirms the significant contribution of the natural and semi-natural ecosystems for ensuring ES provision.
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