Landscape Structure and Ecosystem Services of Etropole Municipality - Sustainable Development in Mountain Regions: Southeastern Europe - page 90

Landscape map

Landscape map Etropole Municipality

Etropole Municipality

Landscape types

Warm subhumid

in hornbeam oak belt

Temperate subhumid

in beech belt

Boundary between landscape types
Municipality border
To w n
Vilage

Contemporary
Landscape

Natural forests
Artificial forests
Transitional woodland-shrub
Pastures and meadows
Arable land
Orchards
Mixed areas with forest and arable land
Urban areas
Mineral extraction sites
Water bodies
Wetlands

N

1:170 000

2,5 1,25 0 2,5 5 7,5 km

Fig. 8.2 Landscape map of Etropole Municipality

belt above 450 m. The natural beech forests are very well preserved occupying 75%
of the area. There are no extended arable lands within this type. They are represented
by relatively small patches surrounded by forests or grassland. That is why the sec-
ond largest land-use type is mixed areas with forest and arable land (12%). The
Pastures and meadows occupy about 5% of the area. They are represented mainly
by secondary vegetation types on the place of former forests, used predominantly
for livestock grazing. Transitional woodland-scrub landscapes (5% of the area) are
located in areas used for timber extraction in the past, which are now at different
stage of reforestation process. The north, lower part of the municipality is occupied
by warm subhumid landscapes in the belt of hornbeam-oak forests , which cover
11,542 ha (31% of the area of the municipality). The share of natural forests here is
less than in the previous type (41%) but they still occupy the largest area. The arable
lands are larger, but still most of them are included in the mixed land-use class (27%
of the area) and only 3,068 ha (8%) are identified as extensive cultivated fields. The
share of the artificial forests (3%) here is bigger than in the previous type, as well as
the transitional woodland-shrub and pasture landscapes, which is due to the higher
level of anthropogenic influence in this part of the municipality (Table 8.1 ).
The valuation based on the described approach shows that the potential value
of the ecosystem services provided by landscapes of Etropole municipality to the
society is 35.3 million BGN/year. Provisioning services make up 27% of this, while
the share of the regulation services is almost half of the value (46%). Forest land-
scapes by far provide the biggest contribution (28.6 million BGN/year) accounting