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Table 6.9 CLC2000 land use by aspects on the high mountains in the Republic of Macedonia
P (km 2 )
code
Type
\
slope
E
S
W
N
2-11
Artificial
3.35
4.08
2.17
1.39
11.00
12-22
Agriculture (all)
280.87
269.64
202.71
162.78
916.00
18
Pastures
36.28
41.18
34.29
22.75
134.50
19
Annual crops
8.47
9.58
7.67
5.29
31.00
20
Complex crops
58.78
52.79
37.12
26.12
174.80
21
Land-agriculture
121.65
111.93
79.39
67.97
380.94
22
Broad leaf
888.96
595.57
795.91
954.96
3, 235.40
23
Coniferous
106.02
87.19
163.32
143.58
500.10
24
Mixed forests
106.80
84.33
141.91
128.66
461.70
25
Natural grassland
357.06
292.72
230.13
203.03
1, 082.94
26
Moors. heathland
87.39
74.90
86.43
72.53
321.25
27
Scleroph. veget.
84.28
79.78
69.10
50.44
283.59
28
Transitional
203.64
214.60
161.35
93.66
673.24
-
Other
13.93
9.69
8.27
1.57
33.46
Total
2, 132.3
1, 712.5
1, 861.3
1, 812.6
7, 518.7
and east aspects. On the contrary, forests occupy smaller portions on these sides,
while are much extended on north and west aspects. It is clear that human impact
has a large influence on land-use structure, according to aspects.
6.5 Conclusion
From presented data, it is obvious that topography of the high mountains has large
direct or indirect influence on land use. Thus, on lower altitudes with south aspects
(with denser population and higher human impact), forests are usually degraded,
destroyed or replaced by cultural vegetation. Because of this, accelerated soil ero-
sion occurs, devastating the landscape. Calculations from the soil erosion map of
the Republic of Macedonia (Djordjevic et al., 1993 ) show high average soil ero-
sion rate in the region of high mountains of 724 m 3 /km 2 /y (786 m 3 /km 2 /y below
1,000 m). In opposite are higher mountain regions, especially those with north
aspects and stepper slopes. These are unsuitable for human activities, which result in
better preserved natural areas. However, with infrastructure and transport moderni-
sation in recent times, influence of morphometry on anthropogenic activities slowly
decreases, followed by some land-use shifting. This will be even more pronounced
in future, when climate change takes effect.
References
Djordjevic M, Trendafilov A, Jelic D, Georgievski S, Popovski A (1993) Erosion map of the
Republic of Macedonia, Skopje-textual part (on Macedonian)
 
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