Urban vacant and abandoned land has significant development potential in towns and cities around the world. In this study, we argue that a bottom-up-oriented approach is necessary in order to map ...urban vacancy. A pilot case study including answers from 133 participants from a small town in Central Europe demonstrates how vacant places can be defined using sketch mapping as a participation technique. The method is based on well-known concepts of topophilia and topophobia. We see the novelty of the paper in two respects: (i) we coin the term perceived topovacancy with regard to urban vacant areas, and (ii) we employ residents' knowledge as the major source of information for spatial definition of such areas. The results revealed important insights into the spatial distribution of the vacant hotspots in the town of Šternberk. They were found not only in former industrial areas but also in the town's center referring to derelict site type of vacancy. The findings are further analyzed based on the residential origin of the participants – natives and non-natives as well.
•Perceived urban vacancy is related to empty spots as well as behaviorally empty built-up locations.•Residents’ knowledge about their city represents a valuable source of unique spatial information.•Perceived topovacancy for native and non-native residents is significantly different.•Sketch mapping serves as a reliable technique for the collection of information about urban vacancy.•Residents prefer new sport and outdoor activities elements as the main suggestions for utilization of the vacant areas.
This article addresses the impact of closed and flexible candidate lists on the representativeness of the lower house of the Czech Parliament from 1996 to 2021. Specifically, the paper explores ...representativeness according to gender, profession, residence, education, age and political experience. The effectiveness of preferential votes has manifested only since the electoral reform in 2010, mainly in the representativeness of women. Other monitored variables had a more pronounced influence, mainly in 2010 and 2013, when various citizen initiatives called for a change in the existing political set, and the new political parties disrupted the party system. Or when the voters of the PirStan coalition preferred the candidates of the STAN at the expense of the candidates of the Pirates in 2021.
•We found differences in the intensity of motorcycle traffic between official and crowdsourced data.•A high concentration of the busiest motorcycle routes can be seen in attractive motorcycle ...regions.•There are great differences in the distance decay function of routes during weekdays and weekends.
Not only in geography is motorcycle transport still a very under-researched phenomenon. Although there has been a recent growth in academic interest in motorcycle transport, there are still some key questions that remain unanswered. Empirical studies analysing motorcycle transport are surprisingly also based mainly on observations in the Global South, with very little research in the economically developed countries of the Global North. This paper aims to examine the spatial patterns of motorcycle transport in the Czech Republic. For the analysis, we use official data on average motorcycle intensities on the road network (i), and unofficial data crowdsourced from individual GPS navigations and social networks (ii). We found major inconsistencies between the two data sources. The paper’s main contribution is to demonstrate the great potential of crowdsourced data to identify important aspects of the spatial organisation of motorcycle traffic. Based on these data, we found substantial differences in the intensity of motorcycle traffic on the road network (different use of individual categories of communications according to both types of data), the popularity of individual motorcycle routes (higher popularity of scenic roads in GPS data), and the different lengths of individual trips during weekdays and weekends.
Currently it is the third year when the global COVID-19 pandemic is having a negative impact on the lives of individuals, on the activities of economic entities of all sizes and on the economies of ...countries around the world. Following the partial calming in this area, a crisis linked to the war in Ukraine hit Europe in early 2022. This has a negative impact on economic production and the associated decline in the standard of living. The prices of materials, products and transport are rising, causing a sharp increase in construction prices in the construction sector. Protecting the occupational health of workers and providing a safe environment for their work form an essential part of all construction projects. This article deals with the research into occupational health and safety on construction sites in the Czech Republic. The research described in this article was conducted in several successive steps. In the first step, a research design was drawn up, in the second step data collection was carried out, and in the third step data analysis and compilation of results were carried out. Qualitative approaches to data collection and analysis, namely in-depth interviews and the coding method, were used in the companies under research. Open-ended questions relating to respondents' opinions, experience and overall perceptions of the issues were developed in the preparatory phase of the research. The aim was to obtain credible answers to the questions raised. The research lasted for six months and involved 19 medium and large companies from the Czech Republic. The purpose of the research described in this article was to find out the situation focusing on providing the health and safety of workers during the implementation of construction. The costs of implementing the necessary measures in this field were also investigated.
This paper presents the characteristics of extreme temperatures in the Czech Republic, as calculated from homogenized series of daily maximum (TMAX) and daily minimum (TMIN) temperatures recorded by ...133 climatological stations throughout the territory in the 1961–2020 period. In general, statistically significant increasing linear trends were recognized in series of absolute TMAX, absolute TMIN, numbers of summer days, tropical days, days with tropical nights, heat‐wave, and warm‐anomaly days. Significant decreasing linear trends appeared in series of numbers of frost days, ice days, cold‐wave, and cold‐anomaly days. Objective classification of circulation types demonstrated the importance of anticyclonic types (especially those with warm airflow from the southern quadrant) and an unclassified type in the development of summer hot extremes, while winter cold extremes were linked to cold (north‐)easterly advection. Significant changes in the frequency of certain circulation types emerged, as well as an increasing number of anticyclonic types conducive to hot extremes, a trend that contributed to their more frequent occurrence in recent decades. Existing trends in temperatures were complemented by spatiotemporal analysis of extreme temperatures, the characteristics of extremes and the circulation types in the two “normal” periods of 1961–1990 and 1991–2020. These exhibited significant differences in means and variances. The results obtained are also discussed in a broader context.
Fluctuations in mean annual numbers of summer (a) and tropical (b) days and in their mean earliest/latest occurrences (c) in the Czech Republic during the 1961–2020 period. Smoothed by 10‐year Gaussian filter and supplemented by linear trends.
We examined the effects of health worries and sociopolitical attitudes on subsequent COVID‐19 vaccine uptake. To avoid the potential bias of cross‐sectional research, we analyzed whether these ...variables were able to predict the vaccine uptake prospectively, that is, when measured at the beginning of the nationwide vaccination campaign. The source of data was a longitudinal quota panel of 863 (T1 March 2021) and 641 (T2 May 2022) adult citizens of the Czech Republic. Besides health worries, the survey covered distrust in politicians, submission to political authorities, and trust in people. Results showed that the likelihood of getting vaccinated against COVID‐19 at T2 was higher for participants who were more worried about the impact of COVID‐19 on their health and less distrustful of politicians at T1. Furthermore, a general trust in people at T1 predicted a more likely vaccine uptake at T2, while political submission had no effect. These results corroborate the roles of both health concerns and sociopolitical attitudes in COVID‐19 vaccine uptake.
This paper presents findings of a comparative study carried out in Poland and the Czech Republic, which analysed the societal attitudes towards migration and migrants in Europe. Our research shows ...that the reaction to migration in Poland and the Czech Republic constitutes a reversed (bottom up) securitisation. Moreover, contrary to the majority of security challenges where the immediate threats are understood to be more dangerous than those placed in a distant future, when it comes to securitised migration, the threat projection increases the further into the future it is cast, and immediacy loses its potency as a catalyst. Societal discourses on migration foresee a dismal future which becomes more and more dystopian with the passing time.
•Where migration is concerned, the further into the future, the more severe issue it becomes.•In societal discourse on migration dangers looming in the future rather than anchored in the present was dominant.•The threat projections form a coherent dystopian story that offer a plausible story about the future.•Using the dystopian warnings enables exploration of long-term political solutions that could defuse the envisioned time-bomb.
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