Acta geographica Slovenica is a research journal for geography and related disciplines published by the Anton Melik Geographical Institute of Scientific Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of ...Sciences and Arts. It has been published since 1952 and is the second-oldest Slovenian geographical journal. Volume 50 was published in 2010, and this article is dedicated to this special anniversary. The journal was only published occasionally until 1976, when the volume 14 appeared, but afterwards it began to be published annually, with two volumes a year since 2003 (volume 43). With volume 43, the journal was included in Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE). Since 2010, it has also had an impact factor. For 2009, this factor was 0.714, which ranks the journal in third place among all indexed Slovenian journals. In all the volumes, a total of 273 research articles have been published on more than 12,000 pages; half of these articles were written by the institute members.
The complete drying out of the Aral and Caspian seas, as isolated continental water bodies, and their potential impact on the climate and environment is examined with numerical simulations. ...Simulations use the atmospheric general circulation model (ECHAM5) as well as the hydrological discharge (HD) model of the Max-Planck-Institut für Meteorologie. The dry out is represented by replacing the water surfaces in both of the seas with land surfaces. New land surface elevation is lower, but not lover than 50 m from the present mean sea level. Other parameters in the model remain unchanged. The initial meteorological data is real; starting with January 1, 1989 and lasting until December 31, 1991. The final results were analyzed only for the second, as the first year of simulation was used for the model spinning up.The drying out of both seas leads to an increase in land surface and average monthly air temperature during the summer, and a decrease of land surface and average monthly air temperature during the winter, above the Caspian Sea. The greatest difference in temperature between dry and not dry cases have the same values, about 7–8 °C in both seasons, while daily extremes of temperature are much more pronounced. In the wider local/regional area, close to both seas, drying out leads to a difference in average annual temperatures by about 1 °C. On a global scale, the average annual temperature remains unchanged and the configuration of the isotherms remain unchanged, except for over some of the continents. In winter, Central Asia becomes cooler, while over Australia, southern Africa, and South America, it becomes slightly less warm. Furthermore, a new heat island occurs in western Sahara during summer.
Anthropogenic influence on weather has been increasingly published and discussed in the last decades. Climate changes caused by inadvertent anthropogenic influence are well underway. Hail ...suppression, which has been proven to have no influence on weather, will be considered in the article. Even though hail suppression as scientifically ungrounded activity seemed to promise certain success several decades ago, it has spread over the whole territory of the Republic of Serbia after abundant experience, when many developed countries have given up on this activity. Reasons will be presented for the senselessness of hail suppression based on the latest research. By processing all hail data from the territory of Serbia in the period from 1967 to 2010, it was found out that the hail trend is rising which is in contrary to expectations and previous claims that hail suppression decreases hail frequency.
This study identifies factors that affect the speed of rockwall retreat of flysch cliffs between Kane Point and Strunjan on the Slovenian coast. Individual factors were combined in a geographical ...information system with mapped recent erosion features. The results indicate the influence of individual factors on the formation of erosion rills, gullies, surfwave breaks, slumps, and rockfalls; that is, flysch coast retreat processes. Special attention is dedicated to the occurrence of major slope processes, specifically slumps and rockfalls, which are an important contributing factor in cliff retreat. The article also presents the threat to individual sections of coast due to rockfalls and slumps.
This study deals with geomorphological natural features (geomorphosites) relative to the natural processes that create, shape, or destroy such features. As a rule, geomorphologic processes are ...geographical constants in the landscape although some, due to their high magnitude or low frequency of occurrence, can be seen as an exception (e.g., natural disasters). The importance of geomorphosites is relative to their size, rarity (spatial distribution), and duration (existence in time), which depend on both the frequency and magnitude of geomorphological processes and on the standards of the observer. Human influence and perception of geomorphosites is also important in this regard.
In this journal, the authors (Zorn, Komac 2004) previously described the use of two deterministic methods for establishing the possibility of landsliding. This time, they take a step forward and ...using the example of the flysch Goriška Brda hills present the probability modelling of landslide hazard. In probability methods, the intensity and distribution of the processes are established by comparing indirectly determined landscape elements and the actual situation, while in deterministic methods, subjective decisions have an impact on the result. We have elaborated a probability map for landslides with a fixed return period using the Dempster-Shafer method on the basis of the data on 800 landslides that occurred with intensive precipitation in the fall of 1998.
The article describes soil erosion in Slovenia. There is little concrete data on soil erosion due to the lack of awareness of this process and the fragmentation of farmland. Long-term measurements of ...soil erosion have only been done at one location; elsewhere, there have only been short observations and calculations and modeling on the basis of empirical equations. To increase our knowledge of this phenomenon, we took measurements of soil erosion on a field in the Besnica Valley northwest of Kranj. With the decrease of agricultural land use in Slovenia due to natural, social, and economic factors, the amount of material lost to erosion has decreased in the last few decades. For protection from erosion, various preventive methods such as terracing, mulching, and contour plowing are employed. The awareness that protection against erosion is a demanding and long-term task is gradually increasing, but nothing can replace the soil that has been lost due to erosion.
Slovenia is endangered by floods. Frequent intensive rainfall and heavy rains, a large proportion of mountainous and hilly regions, and numerous populated narrow valley bottoms are the primary ...reasons for this threat. Floods endanger about seventy thousand hectares of lowlands, and torrential flooding endangers a further three thousand hectares. Due to this enormous threat, Slovenia has more than one hundred years of experience in the field of flood prevention, while only more recently has the awareness developed in the European Union that flood prevention is cheaper in the long run than simply dealing with the consequences of floods. This fact is reflected in the increasing number of laws passed to deal with this danger, and for this purpose maps of flood hazard and flood risk are very important and are presented in the book.
The article presents two deterministic methods for the elaboration of landslide and rock-fall source area maps and, considering human activity in the landscape, for the elaboration of landslide and ...rockfall risk maps. Risk maps are one of the fundamental bases for protection against natural disasters since they illustrate the risks to areas of human activity due to various natural processes. Using the weighting method and for the first time the matrix method, we established the extent of land-slide and rockfall source areas in the Upper Savinja Valley and the risk due to these processes relative to settlement, roads, land use, and rivers and streams. The methodology for elaborating maps using both approaches is described in detail as well as the differ-ences between them. The basic purpose of risk maps is to direct human encroachment in the landscape to safe areas.
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