Ivan Bičík – författare

The objective of this book is to analyze changes in the landscape of Czechoslovakia / the Czech Republic since the first half of the 19th century. The text focuses not only on describing these considerable changes by means of statistical and spatial data, but also on explaining the processes, societal, economic, political and institutional forces that drive them. Drawing on more than two decades of experience with land use research, the authors have combined methods and approaches from the fields of human geography, cartography, landscape ecology, historical geography and environmental history. The authors understand land use research as a way of analyzing nature-society interactions, their development, spatial aspects, causes and impacts. Czechoslovakia / the Czech Republic serves as an example, combining general processes occurring in landscapes of developed countries with the results of regionally specific driving forces, most of them political  (world wars, communism, return to market economy etc.).

Landscape modelling integrates the differing perspectives of the many disciplines that deal with the landscape. It is motivated not only by the desire for scientific understanding, but also by the real-time demands of 21st century postindustrial society, which include the twin imperatives of stabilizing damaged ecosystems on the one hand, and finding effective ways to use the landscape on the other. The discipline has the specific goal of designing and assessing future scenarios of landscape development, while not losing sight of its past history, both ecological and socio-cultural. This book encompasses the interrelated disciplines of geography, landscape ecology and geoinformatics, and by drawing on their theories and methodologies introduces the concept of a living landscape with human action an inseparable part of its evolution. It offers researchers and decision-makers a number of ideas on how our landscape can best be utilized. The content reflects the need for sustainable landscape development, at the same time as considering long-term continuity as a major condition which enables us to maintain the diversity and multifunctionality of landscapes at regional and macro-regional scales. Employing advanced terminology and methods, this book provides specific results especially for scientists and landscape professionals.