<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>More than 40% of China’s arable land is degraded. This paper reviews the direct and indirect consequences of soil degradation in China. Soil degradation has observable and measurable impacts, which include soil nutrient loss, salinization, acidification, and desertification. It also has a number of indirect consequences, in particular, a reduction of the agricultural output due to a drop in soil nutrient; an increase in the frequency and magnitude of floods and landslides; a decline in livestock production due to a decrease in grass density available to roaming livestock; an intensification of dust storms and sandstorms which affects health, the productivity of the land, and visibility; and a faster accumulation of silt in dams, which damages their structure, reduces their water storage capacity, and compromises their original functions, in particular their electricity generation capacity.</abstract>

The consequences of soil degradation in China: a review

<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>Recent effects of globalization, urbanization and climate change have resulted in an increasing interest in the quality of life in cities and seeking pathways for its improvement. At the same time, there are changes in society and lifestyles that may challenge or facilitate these pathways. Community gardens (CGs) represent an effort to provide more sustainable urban economies, while reflecting on the public demand for cultivation of own crops. However, members of CGs may not perceive all the benefits that CGs provide for their surroundings. Using two case studied from Czechia (CG Kuchyňka and CG Vidimova in Prague) the aim of this paper is a comparison of the benefits perceived by community garden members and the evaluated net social benefits of community gardens in cities for all local residents. Through a questionnaire survey, the paper answers the research question of the benefits of community gardens perceived by community garden members. An economic assessment based on cost-benefit analysis was made to answer the question of the value of the net social benefits of community gardens in cities. Our comparison shows that the net social benefits are higher than perceived by their members. Net present benefits of EUR 31 550 for CG Kuchyňka and EUR 1 175 for CG Vidimova were quantified in a 50-year horizon. This economic analysis should contribute to greater support for community gardens by city governments and spatial planners.</abstract>

Improving the quality of life in cities using community gardens: from benefits for members to benefits for all local residents

<abstract>
<title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>
The literature on the concentration of urban poverty has considered two kinds of locations as the pockets of poverty: slums (vs. non-slums) and towns (vs. cities). Moving beyond these binaries in discussing spatial concentration of urban poverty, we have made an intersection of these two kinds of residential locations in the post-reform India using four rounds of data from the National Sample Survey. The proportion of relatively poor households was lower in city slum areas than in towns (both slum and non-slum households). Next, this paper tries to find out the level of basic services availability across these intersectional spatial categories and how public policies respond to existing poverty. Availability of basic services was higher in city slums than in town non-slum households. Across all these urban areas, the poor had a lower access to services than the non-poor, and the gap between them had increased over time. These findings also pose serious concerns on the geographical targeting of poverty alleviation programmes in India and on iniquitous resources allocations for providing basic amenities
</abstract>

Has the geography of deprivation changed in post-reform urban India? A Look into relative poverty and access to basic services

<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>Dhaka City has been suffering from many environmental problems including
flooding, water logging and other related problems. Urbanization, which is occurring very fast
and with larger magnitude in Dhaka, is the intrinsic reason behind these problems. High rate of
urbanization causes extensive urban area expansion and as a result canals, wetland and other
water bodies are quickly vanishing from the landscape. This study shows the present physical
condition of the canals; identifies the processes of canal encroachment; represents the
consequences of canal encroachment. 13 canals of 50 were surveyed; local people were
surveyed to identify the impact and processes of encroachment. According to this study, canals
of Dhaka city are under serious threat of extinction and require immediate recovery actions.
Canals are being encroached in various styles and this study identifies five: unauthorized land
filling, illegal construction over canal, expansion of slum, solid waste dumping, taking
advantage of lack of awareness of local people as well as government agencies. However, this
study also discusses the grave consequences of canal encroachment: increasing flood
vulnerability, wane of ground water recharge area and ground water level, collapse of natural
drainage system, loss of local ecology and biodiversity.</abstract>

Department of Geography & Environment, University of
Dhaka, Bangladesh

Department of Geography, University of Calgary, Canada.

Encroachment of Canals of Dhaka City,
Bangladesh: An Investigative Approach

<abstract>
<title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>
The aim of this research study is to compare the procedures for solving geographical problems with printed and digital cartographic products. These documents are used in various areas of society, including regional development or visual communication in the media. A total of 27 probands participated in the research. Individuals were randomly divided into two groups, one group working with a printed atlas and the other with a digital atlas in the same version. Respondents were tested using stationary and wearable eye-trackers while completing a didactic test to determine different levels of map skills. The results of the research showed that although the procedures and the success rate for solving the different tasks did not differ between the two groups of respondents, the differences were mainly in the time needed for the solution and in the satisfaction in the use of a given type of cartographic work.
</abstract>

Problem-solving procedures in spatially explicit tasks: comparing procedures with printed and digital cartographic documents

<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>Recently, the role of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs)s in environmental governance has been widely investigated, especially regarding the issue of mandatory public participation in policy-making within a European context. This paper aims to redirect scientific attention from their pure participation to their field actions, i.e., to the role they play in actual natural resource management, especially at the local level, and reframe local environmental NGO roles and positions based on the criteria for scale and influence. More specifically, this paper seeks to identify factors that promote NGOs as effective complements in the protection of state biodiversity and stresses local impacts of different governance schemes.Determining factors were investigated through a series of in-depth case studies undertaken in the Czech-German border region of the eastern Krušné hory Mts. (Erzgebirge, Ore Mts.). Rather than a quantitatively oriented survey among NGOs, this study focused primarily on a specific territory and, subsequently, on the identification of relevant actor performance (including NGO representatives) within this territory. The method applied for comparison was the Institutional Analysis and Development Framework (IAD Framework). This design enabled a comparison of different social practices in the homogeneous ecosystem present on both sides of the border and captured the influence of specific social and historical cross-border features on environmental NGO performance.</abstract>

Local environmental NGO roles in biodiversity governance: a Czech-German comparison

<abstract>
<title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>
Rawa Aopa National Park has experienced a severe wildfire. These fires are affected by several factors, including topography, meteorology, vegetation, and source of fire. This study uses a Machine Learning approach based on re-sampling methods (e.g. crossvalidation, bootstrap, and random subsampling) to evaluate, and improve the performance of twelve basic Machine Learning algorithms: Generalized Linear Model, Support Vector Machine, Random Forest, Boosted Regression Trees, Classification And Regression Tree, Multivariate Adaptive Regression Splines, Mixture Discriminate Analysis, Flexible Discriminant Analysis, Maximum Entropy, Maximum Likelihood, Radial Basis Function, and Multi-Layer Perceptron, analyze the causes of wildfires, and the correlation between variables. The model is evaluated by Area Under Curve, Correlation, True Skill Statistics, and Deviance. The evaluation results show that Bt-RF has a good performance in predicting wildfire susceptibility in TNRAW with AUC=0.98, COR=0.96, TSS=0.97, and Deviance=0.15. An area of 644.88 km2 or the equivalent of 59.82% of the area is a wildfire susceptibility area with the concentration of fires occurring in the savanna ecosystem which is around 245.12 km2 or the equivalent of 88.95% of the jungle zone. Among the 17 parameters that cause fires, this area is strongly influenced by Maximum Temperature, Land Use Land Cover, and Distance from Road. There is a strong correlation between soil and distance from settlements = 0.96.
</abstract>

Spatial model of wildfire susceptibility using Machine Learning approaches on Rawa Aopa Watumohai National Park, Indonesia

<abstract>
<title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>
Multilevel governance concept has been increasingly coined by the EU environmental and climate adaptation policies, but its implementation in some countries faces the heavy dominance of state-level perspective in public discourse. This article explores interactions between regional policies (based especially on the Adaptation Strategy, the Nature Recovery Plan, and their action plans), institutional management (how public institutions approached environmental and climate adaptation needs through the design of their institutional areas), and individual needs (how individuals were considered and involved). Methodology includes the content analysis of documents framing regional policies and a questionnaire collected during September 2021 (in which 150 public institutions were addressed and 87 of them responded). Data show that even though the Košice region strived for holistic approach, cooperation, and participation, the proclaimed values and the real-life situation differed. The developed regional strategy was rather unbalanced, projects implemented by individual institutions seemed to be driven by financial aids rather than real needs, and individuals’ needs as well as their participation on implementing environmental policies were often neglected.
</abstract>

Implementing multilevel environmental governance in Košice region (Slovakia): interactions between regional policies, institutional management, and individuals’ needs

<abstract>
<title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>
Drawing on a highly detailed database of anonymized tax returns (N = 400,000) from Czechia (2008–2020), we aim to describe and explain regional patterns in individual giving. The key research question is to what extent regional differences are shaped by individual factors and to what extent by factors at the regional level, including regional economic performance and structure (industrial, ownership), position in the urban hierarchy, human and social capital, rurality, and political preferences. Czechia is a relatively small, developed, and ethnically homogeneous country, with a centralised tax system. Potential regional differences in individual giving are likely to be driven by particularities of economic structure and/or social capital. Hierarchical linear regression models with fixed effects were employed to distinguish the effects of these two groups of factors.
</abstract>

The geography of individual charitable giving: do personal or regional characteristics matter?

<abstract>
<title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>
This study examines the changing age structure in Slovakia and ageing process, analyzing district-level data from 2001, 2010, and 2020. The research highlights significant ageing trends across most Slovak districts. These demographic changes have profound implications, including potential labor shortages, increased demand for healthcare and social services, social isolation, pension system strain, and shifting housing needs towards older adults. Understanding these trends and regional variations is vital for effective planning and provision of education, social services, and healthcare for diverse age groups in Slovakia. Our research underscores the complexity of implementing effective measures to mitigate the consequences of demographic ageing, given the regional disparities in ageing intensity. This study offers valuable insights for optimal planning. The challenges identified, such as financing social and healthcare systems and supporting vulnerable groups, are not unique to Slovakia but are shared by many countries undergoing similar demographic transitions. By examining Slovakia’s approach, we contribute to the broader discourse on demographic ageing and highlight the need for future research to focus on comparative studies between regions and countries. This will help identify best practices and innovative solutions that can be adapted to various socio-economic contexts, fostering international collaboration and informed policy-making to address the global impact of ageing populations.
</abstract>

A spatiotemporal analysis of ageing trends in Slovakia and their societal implications

<abstract>
<title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>
Lynch’s (1960) Theory of Imageability explores how individuals perceive and navigate urban environments, emphasizing the role of paths, edges, districts, nodes, and landmarks. This theory highlights the significance of these elements in shaping people’s mental maps and enhancing their understanding and navigation of urban spaces. However, cultural tourism introduces complexities to Lynch’s framework due to its unique motivations, interests, and behaviours. This article investigates the relationship between visitor mobility patterns and urban morphology in the context of two cultural destinations: Bilbao and San Sebastian. The study utilizes Network Analysis of visitors’ GPS data to analyse the dynamics of visitor mobility within these urban environments. This data-driven approach facilitates a comprehensive understanding of how cultural destinations operate within their physical territories. Results reveal that both San Sebastian and Bilbao exhibit a distinct “D-shaped” mobility pattern, characterized by a clear and uncomplicated flow of movement. This finding aligns with Lynch’s theory (1960), emphasizing the importance of simplicity and legibility in shaping visitors’ cognitive maps and mental representations of the urban space. The concentration of cultural landmarks in the Old Town and the challenges of congestion and overtourism are brought to light through the network analysis of GPS data. The accompanying figures visually illustrate how the ease of navigation in these cities significantly contributes to the formation of visitors’ cognitive maps.
</abstract>

Visitor Mobility Patterns in Cultural Destinations: Exploring the Cognitive Maps of San Sebastian and Bilbao, Inspired by Lynch (1960)

<abstract>
<title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>
The need to act on urban expansion has been a common concern throughout the history of urbanism. Different authors have shown how in industrialized countries the old distinctions between urban and rural become blurred. The location and conformation of new leisure, commercial and tertiary objects have become triggers for new looks at the urbanization edges of industrial cities. Although they have been less explored in non-industrial cities or cities with a lower degree of industrialization, different studies show that these characteristics seem to be combined there with other factors such as social housing, progressive expansion of the urban fabric and degraded areas. Nevertheless, could there be a theory that enlightens the conditions and transformations of the metropolitan edge and guides their research? The aim of this work is to compare four key approaches: spaces in socio-spatial transformation, multi-actor project, multiple, dynamic and heterogeneous uses, and non-universal spatial delimitation, focusing on three categories: concept, attribute, and methodology. This research is grounded in the selection of relevant publications based on their substantive scope, significant impact factor index, and/or number of citations, as well as the international recognition of researchers. These findings underscore the importance of theorizing the metropolitan edge as a process that transforms inherited spaces according to their socio-economic, historical, and environmental contexts. The results reflect the need for denominations and classifications that help us to differentiate analytically and cartographically the multiple landscapes of the metropolitan edge and question us about the specificity of this territory that extends between urban nuclei and rural space, the processes that have overlapped over time, and their logics.
</abstract>

Between urban and rural: towards an understanding of metropolitan edge

<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>As satellite data of the Earth surface seems to be of vital importance for many applications, classification of land use and land cover has been found to vary dramatically in different approaches. In this paper, modified classification algorithm of remote sensing data is presented for processing medium and high spatial resolution satellite images like Landsat and Sentinel in Tashkent province of Uzbekistan. The results of NDVI (Normalized difference vegetation index) profile analysis via Spectral Correlation Mapper classification are shown for the period 1994-2017. It is implied, that combination of optical and radar data with application of Spectral Correlation Mapper classification improve the results of classification for a specific dataset by considering such factors as overall classification accuracy and time and labor involved.</abstract>

Multi-temporal monitoring of cotton growth through the vegetation profile classification for Tashkent province, Uzbekistan

<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>In this article, we examine a relationship between population/economic size and resilience of Czech regions. More specifically, we ask if there are any significant differences among metropolitan cores and hinterlands, urban regions and rural regions in (post)crisis economic development in the period 2009–2013. Three aspects of resilience were considered: volatility of unemployment, renewal (increase in economic performance compared to other regions) and reorientation (measured by the intensity of structural changes in total employment). We found relatively small differences among particular types of regions and high intra-group heterogeneity. Specialized industrial urban regions exhibited the fastest economic growth in the (post)crisis period. Metropolitan cores lagged slightly behind, but experienced relatively stable economic development. Although rural regions exhibited the highest unemployment volatility, they did not lag behind in terms of value added growth. Regional resilience in a small open economy like Czechia seems to be predominantly driven by extraregional factors such as the position in global production networks and economic performance in particular industries or large transnational corporations.</abstract>

Resilience of metropolitan, urban and rural regions: a Central European perspective

<abstract>
<title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>
Landslides are among the major environmental hazards with large-scale socio-economic and environmental impacts that jeopardize socio-economic wellbeing in mountainous regions. Landslides are due to the interaction of several complex factors such as local or regional geology, geomorphology, topography, and seismic motions. The goal of this study is to review published articles on causes and effects of landslides in Central Asia throughout 2000–2020. In line with this goal, we have collected (using Scopus database), reviewed, and analyzed 79 papers published during 2000–2020. Our results revealed an increasing number of landslide studies in Central Asia during the period under investigation, with authors from Belgium dominating in the published outcomes (28% of total), followed by authors from Central-Asian countries. After then, the paper analyses the mostly applied models and frequently identified driving conditions and triggers of landsliding, such as aspect, altitude, soil types, precipitation, earthquakes and human interventions. Geographic information system (GIS) and remote sensing (RS) had not commonly been used in the papers between 2000 and 2010, and they have progressively been applied in landslide studies in Central Asia in the last decade. According to our analysis, geotechnical, geophysical and statistical methods were preferably used for the landslide studies in Central Asia.
</abstract>

Landslides in Central Asia: a review of papers published in 2000–2020 with a particular focus on the importance of GIS and remote sensing techniques

<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>Quarrying represents a major human impact on the landscape. The positive effects of quarrying have also been appreciated over the last several decades and concern the role of quarries as sites with the potential for geoscientific education and geotourism. In this paper we present a procedure for establishing a multitemporal database of abandoned quarries and their multicriterial assessment in order to determine sites suitable for geotourism purposes. The case of the České středohoří Protected Landscape Area in Northern Czechia is used, as an example of conflicting interest between nature conservation and intense quarrying. Using the combination of old maps and current orthophotomaps, we identified 80 (mid-19th Century), 57 (mid-20th Century) and 38 (2007) quarries. 104 of them were further evaluated according to criteria of scientific and educational value and ‘potential use’ value (visibility, accessibility and extent). This process enabled to determine sites with the highest suitability for geotourism purposes. Finally, we discuss management context for these sites, and possible threats to the sites caused by increased geotourism.</abstract>

Assessing the geotourism potential of abandoned quarries with multitemporal data (České Středohoří Mts., Czechia)

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