Slovenia is a country of exceptionally diverse landscapes at the intersection of four major European macroregions: the Alpine, Pannonian, Dinaric, and Mediterranean regions. Terraces, which are a ...characteristic Mediterranean landscape element, occur in all landscape types, but they vary in terms of density, purpose, and current function. Terraces, which define the most characteristic terraced landscape, are most common in the Mediterranean environment. However, they are also common in Karst-Dinaric landscapes and the wine-growing Pannonian hills, but are more unusual in mountainous Alpine regions, where they occur especially in transition areas to Mediterranean landscapes. Different types of terraces are defined by their purposes: agricultural, viticultural, and fruit-growing. The first type is found across Slovenia, whereas the second and third types are found in hills with favorable climates for cultivating grapes and fruit trees. Agricultural terraces are older; with the declining role of agriculture, increased social mobility, and an ageing and insufficient agricultural workforce, these terraces have lost their former role and their former fields are now almost entirely replaced by meadows. With the exception of the Mediterranean region and some of the Dinaric regions, wine-growing terraces and the less common fruit-growing terraces are the product of modern, mechanized farming, and a different understanding of the quality of vineyard production. This requires greater separation between rows to allow the use of farm machinery between grapevines set further apart.
The established geographical name Bay of Piran refers to the largest bay in the Gulf of Trieste at the extreme north end of the Adriatic Sea. After the collapse of Yugoslavia and the emergence of ...independent countries demarcated along the borders of the former Yugoslav republics, the previously undemarcated body of water between Slovenia and Croatia became the focus of a border dispute between the two countries. One of the basic principles of proper treatment of geographical names is not to change established and widely used names. The name 'Bay of Piran' (Sin. Piranski zaliv, Cro. Piranski zaljev) is derived from the Italian name Vallone di Pirano 'Bay of Piran', which replaced the Italian name Valle di Sicciole 'Bay of Secovlje' (as well as Ital. Valle di Siciole, Sin. Secoveljski zaliv) a century and half ago. This in turn was established towards the end of the 18th century, replacing the Italian name Largon 'Broad' or Golfo Largone 'Broad Bay'. Since 2000 there have been Croatian attempts to establish the completely new name 'Bay of Savudrija' (Cro. Savudrijska vala, Sin. Savudrijski zaliv).
•We examined the evolution of European land management over the past 200 years.•The study was based on 28 country-level narratives on drivers of land use-change.•7 land-management regimes were ...identified along with their drivers.•Land reforms and technological innovations were major drivers of regime change.•Land-system changes should be conceived as path-dependent processes.
Land use is a cornerstone of human civilization, but also intrinsically linked to many global sustainability challenges—from climate change to food security to the ongoing biodiversity crisis. Understanding the underlying technological, institutional and economic drivers of land-use change, and how they play out in different environmental, socio-economic and cultural contexts, is therefore important for identifying effective policies to successfully address these challenges. In this regard, much can be learned from studying long-term land-use change. We examined the evolution of European land management over the past 200 years with the aim of identifying (1) key episodes of changes in land management, and (2) their underlying technological, institutional and economic drivers. To do so, we generated narratives elaborating on the drivers of land use-change at the country level for 28 countries in Europe. We qualitatively grouped drivers into land-management regimes, and compared changes in management regimes across Europe. Our results allowed discerning seven land-management regimes, and highlighted marked heterogeneity regarding the types of management regimes occurring in a particular country, the timing and prevalence of regimes, and the conditions that result in observed bifurcations. However, we also found strong similarities across countries in the timing of certain land-management regime shifts, often in relation to institutional reforms (e.g., changes in EU agrarian policies or the emergence and collapse of the Soviet land management paradigm) or to technological innovations (e.g., drainage pipes, tillage and harvesting machinery, motorization, and synthetic fertilizers). Land reforms frequently triggered changes in land management, and the location and timing of reforms had substantial impacts on land-use outcomes. Finally, forest protection policies and voluntary cooperatives were important drivers of land-management changes. Overall, our results demonstrate that land-system changes should not be conceived as unidirectional developments following predefined trajectories, but rather as path-dependent processes that may be affected by various drivers, including sudden events.
Ljubljansko polje is a gravel plain lying along the Sava River north of Ljubljana. Although built-up areas are steadily expanding, the water protection area has helped preserve the character of ...relatively intensely cultivated agricultural land at least in its central part. However, illegal dumping sites pose a threat to the groundwater in the gravel aquifer. In the narrowest and narrow water protection areas of Ljubljansko polje, we have found, registered, and studied 1,445 illegal dumping sites with a total surface area amounting to 120,816 m2 and a total volume of 209,422 m3. A good seventh (13.5%) of the total waste is hazardous. In the area surveyed, we also registered 86 gravel pits, 47 information and warning signs, and 57 road barriers on access roads. In time, it will be necessary to rehabilitate all the illegal dumping sites; however, due to the large quantity of waste it is unrealistic to expect this to happen in one go, and we have therefore established a priority schedule for the rehabilitation.
The geographic literature made an important contribution to the development of national consciousness among Slovenes in the 19thcentury, as well as to the reinforcement of Slovene identity after ...Slovenia's independence in 1991. A typical example of this kind of geographic publication is Atlant, the first atlas of the world in the Slovene language, which was published in installments from 1869 to 1877. Atlant followed the concept of a Unified Slovenia, and this idea boosted the confidence of Slovenes, the bulk of whom were incorporated into Austria-Hungary as they entered the stage of European politics as a nation for the first time. With the publication of Atlant, a number of geographical names were trans-lated into Slovene or Slovenized for the first time. The geographic, linguistic, and political conditions in which Slovenes lived, as well as the relations at the time between Slovene, German, and Slavic languages, are reflect-ed in the way foreign place names were adapted. The reprinting of Atlant in 2005 is also associated with a critical period in history, since it was published after the independence of Slovenia and its inclusion in the European Union, a time when the young state has been seeking its identity among all the world's nations.
This volume (‘Slovenian Country Names’) offers a detailed analysis of naming all independent countries and non-self-govering territories. Alongside the Slovenian short and full names of individual ...political territorial units, the genitive, locative, and adjectival forms of the short names, native short and full forms transliterated into the Roman alphabet (if applicable) or English and French official short and full names of individual territorial political communities, it also contains coded labels, an etymological explanation of the names, notes if needed, any alternative names, archaic names, or nicknames, and demonyms.The volume is organized into three sections. The first is a theoretical and methodological discussion of exonyms, and it also presents the reasons for selected name forms for independent countries and dependent territories. Certain names whose usage is not uniform are presented in greater detail. The second part, in tabular format, is a detailed presentation of the names of 198 independent countries and fifty-one major non-self-govering territories with a high degree of autonomy for which corresponding political decisions could lead to their independence at any time. The third section is cartographic and presents territorial political units on colored maps with borders. The volume will contribute to more correct and more uniform use of country names, and it will be a useful aid for both individuals and institutions dealing with this issue.
This study presents various aspects of the use of adapted exonyms (i.e., foreign geographical names) in Slovenian. The cartographic use of these names rests on a long tradition dating back nearly a ...century and a half. This study presents the issues related to the use of adapted exonyms in all major Slovenian world atlases, including the Veliki splošni leksikon (Large General Encyclopedia) and the dictionary section of the latest Slovenski pravopis (Slovenian Normative Guide). Adapted exonyms are treated based on their regional affiliation and semantic type and, for names in the four most prominent atlases, the typology of Slovenianized exonyms has been redesigned and studied with regard to level and type of adaptation. The use of adapted exonyms in the individual sources treated is critically discussed, enabling an onomastic understanding of their actual value and reliability. The collected material is a basis for the greatly needed standardization of adapted exonyms, as recommended by the resolutions of the United Nations Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names. These resolutions consistently demand that individual UN member states limit the use of exonyms, which to some degree contradicts the principle of linguistic autonomy.
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