Various approaches to evaluation of ecological stability

Abstract

Nowadays, the landscape is under a heavy pressure that comes from a rising human needs. The landscape changes reflect the cooperation of influence of the human needs, but the ecological stability of landscape is often destabilized. The first step in finding out the solution of this problem is the evaluation of landscape ecological stability, however it is a complicated process. The evaluation of this process is based on various mathematical methods. At the beginning, the calculation of the ecological stability is done by determination of landscape elements and categorization them into predefined categories. The predefined categories vary for different methodologies, nevertheless the methodologies have similar point of view on eco-stabilization value of landscape elements. There are many methodologies that are used in Slovakia. Some of them have been presented in Muchova et al. (2009), Rehackova – Pauditsova (2007), Low et al. (1984) and Michal (1982). First two mentioned methodologies have been designed to be used in Land Consolidation (LC) and the Territorial System of Ecological Stability (TSES). This paper deals with the comparison of two methodologies. The first methodology was presented in Low et al. (1984) and the second methodology that has been compared is according to Michal (1982). These two referred methodologies were used to determine the coefficient of landscape ecological stability in cadastral area Bielovce. Data used in presented work have been prepared in GIS environment.