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(on average) much faster in comparison with the course and speed of the majority
of natural processes. Fast changes in land use and landscape structure are a dis-
tinctive attribute of contemporary cultural landscapes under the dominant influence
of man.
Any change in society, whether economic, in ownership, technological or demo-
graphic, produces changes in the method of landscape use, in landscape structure
and as a result changes in landscape character, biodiversity, ecological stability and
in the course of all processes running in the landscape (see above). As societal
changes are with time becoming faster, also landscape changes have a tendency
to be faster and deeper with more significant ecological consequences. The increas-
ing speed and extent of the changes belies time dimensions of natural development
and adaptability of natural systems. Important is here the link made between the
transformation of the landscape and the loss of richness and diversity which are
considered as characteristic for the European continent and identity (Antrop, 2008).
Brassley (1997) proposed the concept of the ephemeral landscape. Within the
relatively stable structure of the landscape, the ephemeral landscape is more or less
permanently changing. It is undisputable that changes in agricultural technologies
produce changes in agricultural landscapes. Human-induced ephemera are usually
associated with agriculture, principally because agriculture is the major form of
land use in Europe. The method of cultivation, structure of field crops, harvest-
ing methods, whether of grass or corn, methods of livestock farming as well as
other agricultural processes have been radically altered during the last 50 years
with concomitant effects on the ephemeral landscape structure. The appearance of
the countryside during the corn or hay harvest has been fundamentally changed.
Black-and-white photographs from the mid-Twentieth century show ephemeral ele-
ments typical of the rural landscape of past centuries that no longer exist in the
contemporary landscape. Instead of the lines of shocks that covered the cornfields
often for several weeks in the summer season, bales of straw of different size
and shape (depending on used technologies) are typical for the present agricul-
tural landscape in late summer. Thus, we can find numerous landscape features that
are ephemeral, some natural, some produced by human activities. Brassley (1997)
argues that ephemeral components and ephemeral changes have a major impact
on the appearance of the landscape and on the way in which it is perceived and
valued.
2.4 Socialist Collectivisation as an Example of Dramatic
Landscape Changes
The socialist collectivisation of agriculture that has been occurring since the 1950s
in Central and Eastern European countries of the former Soviet block has been often
presented as a typical example of fast and dramatic landscape-structure changes
caused by major political, social and economic changes in the life of a soci-
ety. There have been many land use and landscape-structure changes throughout
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