Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 6
Morphometry and Land Use on the Mountains
in Republic of Macedonia
Ivica Milevski
Abstract
In this chapter, basic morphometric (geomorphometric) characteristics
and their influence on the land use of high mountains in the Republic of Macedonia
are presented. Morphometric elements are computed from 3”SRTM DEM model.
Special attention is given to hypsometry, slopes and aspects which are characteristic
for each mountain. Land use is calculated from Corine Land Cover 2000 data and
appropriate raster map in the scale 1:100,000, according to the CLC categorisation.
Land-use patterns on the high mountains are analysed with respect to hypsome-
try, slopes and aspects, finding large differences in all of these elements. Parts of
these differences result from anthropogenic influences and human impact in the
landscape, which is also highly influenced by topography. That fact must be tak-
ing into account considering sustainable development of mountain areas, especially
with regard to accelerated erosion and overall landscape degradation.
Keywords
Morphometry
·
Land
use
·
High mountains
·
Sustainable
development
·
CLC2000
6.1 Introduction
As a result of powerful local and regional geotectonic movements in the past,
the landscape in the Republic of Macedonia (25,713 km
2
) has characteristic
chess-like relief with frequent changes of mountains and depressions. In general,
hilly-mountain areas highly dominate in the relief, covering 78.8% of the country
(Stojmilov,
1981
), while mountains cover only 12,254.5 km
2
or 47.7% of the coun-
try (Markoski,
1995
,
2004
). From about 40 mountains, 13 are grouped as high,
extending above 2,000 m a.s.l. (Panov,
1976
; Stojmilov,
1976
), while the high-
est - Korab - reach 2,753 m. According to the area which they occupy (29.3%),
high mountains have large importance for the Republic of Macedonia. However,
Search WWH ::
Custom Search