The Cittaslow movement promotes a “good quality of life”. The organization brings together small towns from all countries of the world, including Poland where the majority of Cittaslow towns are ...located in the Region of Warmia and Mazury. The region also abounds in many candidate towns, including Morąg, for which a case study was conducted. An attempt was made to evaluate Morąg’s potential and ability to meet Cittaslow certification requirements.
The study presents the assessment of spatial distribution, including vertical variability of selected features of springs. For this aim, the data obtained during three hydrological mapping sessions ...in the upper Bystrzyca Dusznicka river catchment in the period of 1995–2018 was used. Thanks to the long-term observation series, comparative spatial analyzes of statistical distribution of spring’s selected features were possible. Furthermore, the variability of temperature, reaction and conductivity of rivers and springs were estimated, assessing these parameters along the tributaries course of the Bystrzyca Dusznicka river. Results for years of various precipitation conditions were compared. Presented analyzes allowed to identify and valorize the factors determining the variability and changes in springs characteristics during dry and moist years.
This article analyzes current theoretical discourses within the Neolithic and Chalcolithic research of Southwestern Asia, which is still dominated by interpretations that assume a progression of ...increased hierarchization. Whether explicitly or implicitly, social evolutionary thinking still pervades our scholarship, and prevents innovative theory-building. This entails an inability to break with heuristics of ‘origins’ inherited from the past (e.g. “from the origins of domestication to the origins of civilization”), even though old and new discoveries, when integrated, are already pointing towards alternative research pathways. Sedentism, domestication, and urbanism were all complex, protracted, non-linear processes. Yet, the visualization of an ‘Uruk phenomenon’ expanding over large areas of Mesopotamia during the 4th millennium BC, ridden with problematic inconsistencies, still heralds the triumphal rise of civilization. Instead of relying on obsolete political and economic theories, or fake economy/ritual dichotomies, the investigation of social intelligence and the articulation of the biosocial in the landscape and within the prehistoric community should be a priority. The ‘agency’ of ‘elites’ is merely an interpretive deusex machina helping scholars deal with the many difficulties and uncertainties of their research.
Landscape vantage points constitute the basic visual resource of the landscape, enable observation of panoramic panoramas, and thus cultural ecosystem services flows. The panoramic view is the ...tourist destination itself, therefore the functioning of the vantage points is related to the network of tourist routes. The optimization of the network of vantage points is a key issue of tourist function management as well as landscape physiognomic resources protection. The GIS-based visibility analysis is the most appreciated regarding landscape visual resources; it has theoretical and practical explanations. Theoretically, despite its multi-sensory character, the landscape can be regarded as “areas, as perceived by people”. In consequence, this puts a privilege to GIS software because, since the very beginning of its development, the viewshed algorithm computes the visible area and its reverse version (reverse viewshed) computes the area of visibility. This study applies reverse viewshed in search of landscape vantage points. The study aims to propose the methodology of visual exposure indicator (VEI) calculation, which is a geo-information supporting tool of the vantage point optimization process. The VEI values describe the given place’s suitability for vantage point location in terms of view panorama exposition conditions, which, combined with information about tourist routes, enables the vantage point location optimization. The VEI spatial variability analysis also allows for locating the vantage points so far not pointed on the tourist maps. The study was carried out on the example of the Szczebrzeszyński Landscape Park, as a result, it was proposed to expand the existing network up to 45 viewpoints. The resulting visual landscape resources quantification cannot be equated with visual landscape character and quality assessment; however, the proposed GIS framework provides objective results that precisely localize and measure them. The conclusions and limitations of the method were discussed in the context of geocomputation as well as the landscape conservation plans practises.
A national park is, on the one hand, the most valuable natural property under thehighest form of protection, and on the other, a public good that must remain available as such.Hence the presence of ...man in national parks. The consequence of this presence is, inter alia,littering these areas, which often occurs despite the fact that the rules for making national parksavailable are strictly defined and controlled. A high level of ecological awareness of tourists wasindicated as a factor that can cause a significant and permanent change in undesirable behaviorleading to littering in national parks. The attention was paid to the great importance in shapingthis awareness of all informal educational activities carried out by national parks.
Croatian teaching abroad is a special educational program of the Ministry of Science and Education of the Republic of Croatia. It includes a Croatian language and culture program. It is organized for ...school-aged children and descendants of Croatian citizens who temporary or permanently live in other countries. In the school year 2018/2019 Croatian education abroad recorded 101 teachers in 21 countries, with around 340 teaching spots attended by approximately 5,300 students. In the Italian Republic, this education is occurring in Rome, Como, Molise, Udine and surrounding areas, Trieste and Monfalcone. In 2019 Croatian tutoring in Trieste celebrated twenty years of its existence. It was established thanks to the Croatian Community of Trieste and the Croatian Consulate General, and all other persons related to the Consulate and Community, especially the Ministry of Science and Education. The Ministry recognized the importance of this effort and for 20 years has chosen teachers and entrusted them with the placement in the Croatian schools in Italy. This paper presents a framework of Croatian education abroad. It discusses the role of teachers and reasons why students attend classes and their expectations, including the experiences of good practices of teachers and their perspectives for the future. During twenty years of Croatian tutoring in Trieste the following teachers were employed: Vesna Piasevoli, Tatjana Barković, Maša Čiča, Olga Diklić, Ana Spindler, Ana Fonović and Diana Njegovan. These teachers have shared their knowledge and experience and motivated students. Along with this, they collaborated with the Croatian Community and the Croatian Consulate General in Trieste, and with the Ministry of Science and Education. The teachers organized projects and various activities to connect students and parents with the Croatian Community and their homeland. The teachers have engaged in good practices and they are the reason why existing collaborations are fostered and developed, and the experience grows. This paper is intended as a written trace of experience and commitment through two decades, to the present day. Its realization would not be possible without a collaboration with all the institutions and persons involved in the Croatian tutoring in Trieste. is paper unites all the collected materials and contributes to a mosaic of good practices, innovations and a process of growth and development.
Gezende Canyon is located in Gulnar District of Mersin. In the geography where the karst topography has expended, landforms that are intresting than each other have emerged. In Gulnar, where ...limestone formations reach a significant depth, underground and aboveground karst is quite diverse. Among the objects, subject to natural tourism, there are shapes such as cave, canyon valley, blind valley. In this study, Gezende Canyon and bed pits (potholes) were examined in terms of tourism. Geomorphologically, Gezende Canyon is located in the half-graben area of Ermenek Stream. As tectonism was effective in the formation of the graben, karstic processes were effective in the deep eroding of the valley. As Ermenek Stream, which is settled on the fault line, eroding its bed towards to the deep, marble and limestones which belong to The Jura Period were detected at the bottom. Ermenek Stream, which has flood regime has caused a vortex motion in Gezende Canyon by the means of the rock blocks and pebble stones it has dragged. With this vortex motion that has been going on for millions of years, bed pits have formed in Gezende Canyon. These pits are 1m. in diameters and 2-3 meters depth and consist of thousands examples in 4 km. section of the valley. These bed pits, which are single or compound examples are either suspended or scattered at the bottom of the valley. Due to their intresting features, these shapes are of great importance in terms of Adventure and Nature Tourism. Therefore, Gezende Canyon has been examined in terms of Alternative Tourism types. To this end, intensive field studies were carried out and negotiations were completed around Gezende Canyon. In order to embody the subject, the necessary datas related to the field was provided and each one was explained in terms of tourism. The subject is explained by drawing physical maps, temperature, precipitation, lithological and geological maps related to the field. In the conclusion of the study, a number of issues related to the canyon and bed pits have been identified. A number of recommendations have been submitted for these issues. After all these studies, it was concluded that the canyon and bed pits should be brought to tourism. In order to have a susatainable tourism activity in the canyon, Gezende Canyon along with its bed pits should be declared as a natural park.
This paper contains the analysis of regional innovation performance in the NUTS 2 regions of Romania, based on the European Innovation Scoreboard evaluation for 2011 and 2019, and the identification ...of the most significant influencing factors of county-level R&D activity, for the 1997–2018 period. The Regional Innovation Index (RII) provides a profound characterization for Romanian regions regarding their innovation performance, which was studied using the GIS (Geographic Information System) methodology in relation with the regional R&D activity, GDP per capita, and entrepreneurship innovation. In the following, the Romanian R&D activity is analysed at the county level. The influencing factors of R&D expenditures and employment in Romanian counties were studied based on two panel regression models and using exogenous variables, for economic development, entrepreneurship, education, and infrastructure.
Politics, as a human social activity, is strongly embedded in space. Contemporary researchers very often take up in their analyses the issue of competition for space and the role played by ..."geographical knowledge" in the processes of "production" and appropriation of space in the name of particular interests of a given community or state. It is one of the key research problems that have contributed to the revival of interest in the issues of political competition for space, the appropriation of places and the shaping of their landscape and symbolic representation. Categories such as Mitteleuropa, or the Intermarium, are socio-political (metageographical) constructs that have been used in the construction of a particular vision of the world and in processes of political competition for dominance.
Globally, hydrological droughts are most commonly identified based on various indices calculated from water flow values. However, the water flow rate is calculated from a flow rate curve that needs ...to be updated constantly, so it takes a long time to resolve its true value. For this reason, the possibility of identifying a hydrological drought on the basis of hourly and prompt treated water levels seems much more attractive. 8 water gauging stations (WGS) operating along 7 important rivers and covering the hydrological areas of visas in the Lithuanian region were selected for the study. In this study, a modified SPI function of the R programming language SPEI package (traditionally used to calculate the standardized precipitation index, SPI) was applied for the streamflow drought index (SDI) calculations. Given how it was applied to the SDI calculation, just like the baseline data, this was the ten-day mean water flow and then the water level. The suitability of water level data for SDI calculations was assessed by analyzing the relationships between SWLI (Standartized Water Level Index) calculated from water level data and SDI calculated from water flow information. SWLI and SDI in all 8 WGS are closely interconnected. It was found that the possibility of recurrence of droughts of different severity identified by both methods is significantly influenced by the profile of the river bed in a specific section. In areas where riverbanks have steeper slopes, the SWLI and SDI similarly describes the water situation and the recurrence of droughts. It is believed that a modified SDI methodology (SWLI), which is based on water level data, may become a good alternative in our country for identifying hydrological droughts.
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