FP6 priority

1.1.6   Sustainable Development, Global Change and Ecosystems

1.6.3

Title of the proposal

Environmental evaluation of the urban ecosystems

Institute

Slovak Academy of Sciences, Institute of Landscape Ecology,
Štefánikova3, P. O. Box 254, 814 99 Bratislava, Slovak Republic

Contact

Research subject for a potential FP6 project

In the environmental evaluation of urban landscape it is necessary to regard those specificities, importance and functions of cities for man that have not been considered in a complex way hitherto. These issues are very topical representing one of the forms of implementing the program of sustainable development defined by Agenda 21 at the Rio Summit 1992 as well as representing a concrete contribution to fulfilling the international Convention on Biological Diversity.The study of relations among the elements of primary, secondary, and tertiary landscape structures in urban ecosystems. Assess the quality of the environment in urban ecosystems with the help of landscape-ecological basic documents. This will start from landscape-ecological analysis and synthesis along with special interpreted properties such as perception, vulnerability, and load of landscape by stress factors, ecological and cultural significance of landscape. The basic documents are needful to determine the environmental quality and problems of the territory. The main output will be the creation of bases to improve the spatial stability and structure of the territory, to preserve of biodiversity in urban ecosystems, to protect and rational utilise of natural resources, to protect of cultural-historical values in settlements, to improve the quality of the environment, and to eliminate environmental problems in urban ecosystems. The solution of these problems is very significant for urban ecosystems since they form a space of the enhanced concentration of population.

Recent international cooperation of the research team

Saxon Academy of Sciences, Dresden, Germany
University of Agricultural Sciences Vienna, Institute for Landscape Architecture and Landscape Management, Vienna, Austria

Proposer´s relevant publications related to the research subject

Hrnčiarová, T., 1996: Ecological assumptions for sustainable development of Slovakia. Ekológia (Bratislava) 15, 2, p. 207-224.
Hrnčiarová T., 1998: Environmental limits - the tools of the decision-making process. Ekológia (Bratislava), 17, Suppl. 1, p. 75-81.
Hrnčiarová, T., 1999: Ecological carrying capacity of landscape as a tool of landscape-ecological planning. EcoSys - Beiträge zur Ökosystemforschung, Suppl., Bd. 28, p. 243-251.
Hrnčiarová, T., 2000: Landscape-ecological evaluation of the territory. In: Instruments, tools and methods of spatial planning in the areas with specific regimes. Central European Training Centre in Spatial Planning, Fakulta architektúry STU, Bratislava, p. 395-409.
Hrnčiarová, T., Izakovičová Z., 2000: Environmental approaches to sustainable development. Združenie KRAJINA 21, Bratislava, 252 pp.
Hrnčiarová, T., Miklós, L., 2000: Ecological-urban problems in the city of Bratislava. Ekológia (Bratislava) 19, Suppl. 2, p. 299-304.