Environmental Stressors as an Integrative Approach to Landscape Assessment - Landscape Modelling: Geographical Space, Transformation and Future Scenarios - page 37

rising noise pollution and traffic emissions, rising fragmentation, steady degree of
anthropogenic transformation of relief and land, as well as the static condition of
forests. The amplitude of ecological stress values is as follows during the moni-
tored periods: The Trebenice region (more than 300%), the Petrovice region (almost
300%), and the Bilina region (more than 200%). As for the settlement structure,
depopulating development tendencies came to the fore in the large settlement areas.
The number of inhabitants decreased at the expense of localities in their periphery
(Hampl, 2001). The changes in geopolitical conditions brought about the devel-
opment of heretofore peripheral locations at the German border. For many of these
localities, the tourist industry (recreational industry) was also the chief agent of eco-
nomical and social restoration of the locality. Social stress also decreased sharply.
The identification of man with the landscape became stronger.
On the basis of the results obtained by applying the methodological approach
analysing the development of ecological, social and environmental stress alongside
with geographic factors, we may attempt the following simplified typology of the
Ústí region:
- type 1: Regionally exposed areas with a predominantly mining and urban land-
scape function and high ecological and social stress, where the ecological stress
strongly prevails over the social stress (the basin areas below the Ore Mountains);
- type 2: semi-peripheral areas with recreational function, with a low degree of
stress and a predominance of social stress over ecological stress (the plateaus
of the Ore Mountains and the Ceské Stredohorí); mostly marginal, abandoned
localities, permanently underpopulated after the expulsion of the German element,
weakened historical bonds to the landscape;
- type 3: peripheral areas with predominantly agricultural landscape function,
where ecological and social stresses are equivalent; areas under intensive agri-
cultural cultivation, with quality soils for plant production.
When researching the development of landscape and landscape change, the qual-
ity of the individual compositional elements must not be overlooked. In the case
of the Czech-German borderland we have a territory which was for more than
four decades negatively shaped and modified by human influence. This stressful
anthropogenic imprint is so essential to understanding the region that any attempt
at monitoring and interpretation of the development of the landscape without tak-
ing this influence into account would be simply erroneous. The objective of our
methodical approach is not only to monitor the impact of “endemic” anthropogenic
stressors over time in the study areas, for this would have left some of the negative
impact manifested in the areas under discussion unaccounted for. Many of the nega-
tive effects are informed by stressors located far away from the borders of the study
areas and their influence is transferred into these areas.
Acknowledgements The implemented study is one of the partial outputs of the research project
of the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs of the Czech Republic (No 1J 008/04-DP1). The
authors are grateful for the support.