Complex Comparison of Bavarian and Bohemian Forest National Parks from Geographical Perspective: Is there More Similarity or Difference?

This article focuses on comparison of the landscape of two National Parks (Bavarian and Bohemian Forest), which together create the largest area of wilderness in Central Europe. The article shows how different they are in social-economic and physical-geographical perspective. Social and economic conditions were introduced from perspective of path dependency and recent situation and its perception. Furthermore, we integrated social-economic and environmental perspective in the ecosystem services concept. Despite the lesser number tourists arriving to the Bavarian part of the area, perception is better than among mayors of municipalities on the Czech side. Different history, management and top-down and bottom-up approaches usage can explain these differences. The typologies of environmental conditions help us to distinguish differences between both National Parks. In the Bavarian Forest we can find more equal share of forests (coniferous, broad-leaved, mixed) and surprisingly, thanks to large unmanaged part bigger relative share of regenerating forest landscapes than in the Bohemian Forest. Physical-geographical typology distinguishes five classes. Relative distribution of the classes is similar, but we can determine area of high plateau mainly on Czech side and on the other hand class of steeper terrain is located mainly in Bavarian Forest. Ecosystem services was presented by integrating landscape capacity analysis showing small differences between both National Parks in this case and no relation between land cover and attractiveness for tourism.