scholarly journals PHENOMENON OF ABANDONED VILLAGES AND ITS IMPACT ON TRANSFORMATION OF RURAL LANDSCAPES

Author(s):  
Agnieszka Jaszczak ◽  
Katarina Kristianova ◽  
Gintarė Vaznonienė ◽  
Jan Zukovskis

The problem examined in this research is how the loss of rural settlements, small towns, villages and farms contributes to changes in rural landscape and how can this change be managed? The survey was conducted in matching locations in Poland, Slovakia, Germany and in the southern part of Cyprus. The research methods were based on the analysis of source materials and on field analyses in the studied regions. Source research included searching for information in a literature on the subject, as well as planning documents, strategies and studies of spatial development conditions. The main causes of the decline of abandoned rural areas are the decrease in population and migration to cities, the intensification of production and the increase in production areas and the change in the nature of the activities of rural homesteads. The results of the research also show that in addition to common trends comprising the transformation of landscapes in rural areas, each of the analyzed regions differs in terms of the degree of adverse changes, the period in which changes were noted and the possibilities to prevent these changes. In order to prepare a village rehabilitation strategy, a comprehensive diagnosis of whole changes is required, in which the state and causes of landscape changes are determined, and possible solutions for halting rural depopulation are foreseen.

2013 ◽  
Vol 44 (2s) ◽  
Author(s):  
Z. Ludwiczak ◽  
S. Benni ◽  
P. Tassinari

The importance of cultural, historical and identity values of traditional rural landscapes is widely acknowledged in the relevant scientific fields and in legislation. Furthermore, the knowledge of their evolution represents a fundamental basis in order to manage landscape transformations appropriately. The work is part of a broader research aimed at developing and testing a method for the systematic high time and spatial resolution assessment of changes in traditional rural landscape signs. We describe here the main phases of this original quantitative method and a summary of the first results over an Italian case study. A set of parameters allows to provide complementary information about the evolution of the main characters of rural settlements and their components. This proves to be essential to achieve a deep understanding of the traditional physiognomy of places, and to support landscape management and restoration, and the definition of transformation projects.


Author(s):  
Stephen Rippon

Rural settlement in Roman Britain has been the subject of many previous studies (e.g. Rivet 1958; 1964; Thomas 1966a; Dark and Dark 1997; Taylor 2007a), although in the past there has been a tendency to assume that lowland regions were uniformly ‘Roman’ and characterized by villas. The construction of villas represents the conscious adoption of a distinctively ‘Roman’ style of architecture by the land-owning class, and rather than being ‘nouveaux riche’ (Russell and Laycock 2010, 111), they are more likely to have been descended from old elites within the pre-Roman kingdoms. The Latin term villa referred simply to a country house, and while in practice the vast majority appear to have lain at the centre of agricultural estates, it is in this true sense—of a country house—that the term is used here (Percival 1988). Most books on Roman Britain try to illustrate the distribution of villas and through simple small-scale maps such as these, and with knowledge of well-known sites such as Bignor and Chedworth, it is easy to draw three assumptions: first, that we know what a Roman villa is, second, that we can map their distribution quite easily, and third that they were a typical feature of lowland areas. All of these assumptions, however, can be questioned. The first—that we understand the nature of Roman villas—seems the most straightforward, although the amount of recent excavation is in fact surprisingly limited as scheduling has protected so many sites from development, andmost of the early work focused on the main residential building as opposed to its ancillary structures. The expansion in first ‘rescue’ and latterly developerfunded excavation has, however, led to a far greater range of rural settlements being excavated and rather than there being a clear divide between ‘villa’ and ‘nonvilla’ sites, we can see that there was a continuum, with low-status timber structures at one end of the scale, palatial houses at the other, and a large number of sites in the middle that meet some, but not necessarily all, of the criteria for being regarded as a villa.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2142 (1) ◽  
pp. 012007
Author(s):  
T V Ilyushina ◽  
A P Sizov ◽  
V V Belenko

Abstract The processes of flooding of the territory of settlements cause significant economic damage to the national economy. Up-to-date space information provides research on flooding over large areas. Analysis of the dynamics of flooding in the Khabarovsk Region for 2016-2019 using remote sensing methods and statistical data analysis showed that the optimal software product for processing multi-time satellite images is the MapInfo Professional GIS application. It is established that the dynamics of the areas of flooded land in settlements has similar trends, significantly differing in quantitative indicators. The most favorable year was 2017, when the least amount of land was affected by flooding. In 2019, the amount of flooded land was the maximum. 2016 and 2018 occupy an intermediate position. The proportion of flooded land was the highest in large and medium-sized cities, the lowest in rural settlements, and the small towns occupied an intermediate position due to the landscape and geographical features of the research objects. The relative decline in the value of the territory environmental potential (EFP) was also the highest in large and medium-sized cities, and the lowest in rural areas. According to the years, the increase in the temporary decline in EFP due to flooding and withdrawal from economic use of land is as follows: 2017-2016-2018-2019, which is due to the dynamics of the hydrological and climatic characteristics of these years.


2021 ◽  
pp. 22-27
Author(s):  
A.B. Kizimbayeva ◽  
◽  
B.S. Saubetova ◽  
◽  
◽  
...  

The article reveals theoretical and methodological aspects of assessing the sustainable development of rural areas in Kazakhstan. In the course of the analysis, the authors revealed that economically stable and socially developed rural areas will become the basis of stability, independence and food security of the country. Changes in the number of rural population, natural growth and migration growth in recent years have been analyzed. The main socio-economic indicators of development of the Kazakh countryside are presented. The authors state that the losses are mainly observed in the spheres of professional, scientific and technical activities. It is concluded that the problems of improving the level and quality of life in the countryside should not be solved by the old costly methods. The conditions and opportunities for the development of rural areas are diverse in the republic. In this regard, studies aimed at assessing the potential of rural settlements, as well as the effectiveness of the activities of State and local authorities in ensuring sustainable development of rural areas, become relevant. The generalization of literary sources and foreign experience showed the importance of the main directions of public support for rural residents, the implementation of which contributes to the efficient use of agricultural resources, modernization of production and development of innovative technologies, formation of conditions for the intensive development of small business and entrepreneurship in rural areas, the increase in the employment level of rural residents due to expanding the scope of non-agricultural activities and more fully involving rural labor resources in economic turnover, increasing their level of income.


2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 289-317
Author(s):  
Mihaela Hărăguș ◽  
Ionuț Földes

This paper aims to provide descriptive results about demographic trends (natality, mortality, and migration) and their effect on age structure in Romania in the past 30 years. We focus on analysing rural areas, since, while having a negative natural growth and negative net external migration values, internal migration has further affected rural areas by increasing the rate of population decline in many localities. Apart from describing rural areas at a general level, we also differentiate various rural localities according to two criteria, namely inclusion in functional urban areas of every county seat and the existence of marginalised communities within localities’ administrative territory. This differentiation allowed us to portray population characteristics within the broader context of uneven economic development across Romania. Various well-developed cities, known as magnet cities, contribute not only to an increase of population volumes in the surrounding rural settlements but also to other demographic discrepancies between the growth poles and the peripheries. Keywords: rural areas; demographic change; functional urban areas; marginalized communities.


Land ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (7) ◽  
pp. 721
Author(s):  
María F. Schmitz ◽  
Cecilia Arnaiz-Schmitz ◽  
Patricio Sarmiento-Mateos

European rural landscapes contain high nature value farmlands that, in addition to being the main economic activity in many rural areas, host habitats and species of great conservation value. The maintenance of these farming systems largely depends on traditional ecological knowledge and the rural lifestyles of the local populations. However, they have not been sufficiently appreciated and protected, and as a result, they are currently threatened. In this study, which was performed in the Madrid region (central Spain), we analyse the social-ecological changes of the rural landscape after the establishment of a protected natural area network. The obtained results highlight a significant loss of these high nature value farming systems and a marked increase in the rewilding processes characterised by scrub–forest transition and the development of forest systems. These processes are linked to the disruption of the transmission of traditional ecological knowledge, which may imply negative consequences for both the high biocultural diversity that these systems host and the cultural identity and the socioeconomics of the rural populations that live there. A useful methodological tool is provided for social–ecological land planning and the design of effective management strategies for the conservation of rural cultural landscapes.


2015 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 404-422 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne White

The article applies a livelihood strategy approach to understanding how potential migrants in Poland make decisions about finding employment in Poland or abroad, in the context of a Polish labour market characterised by the highest incidence of temporary employment in the EU; regional economic inequality; and local pockets of high unemployment. More specifically, it examines the situation and perspectives of long-term unemployed people in depressed small towns and rural areas. It explores how—in the view of forty interviewees—informal practices influence their lives and prospects. It is well known that unemployment can lead to migration, but not all unemployed people migrate, begging the question of why and when do they do migrate. The article, based on a small sample, cannot provide definitive answers to such questions, but detailed interviews about individual livelihoods can establish some patterns of causation: for example, whether and why interviewees see migration as preferable to informal work in Poland. Interviewees tended to attribute their lack of employment in Poland to not having useful connections who could secure them “decent” work; they felt they were being pushed abroad because the only alternative was local jobs which were informal in the sense of being in breach of labour law. By contrast, many interviewees had more useful contacts abroad than at home; networks represented both escape routes and opportunities. Interviewees often expressed a preference for using informal channels to migrate, though their stories also illustrated the riskiness of depending on networks.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (23) ◽  
pp. 12946
Author(s):  
Isabel del Arco ◽  
Anabel Ramos-Pla ◽  
Gabriel Zsembinszki ◽  
Alvaro de Gracia ◽  
Luisa F. Cabeza

Rural depopulation is a worldwide fact and has a domino effect on medium and small cities, which act as a nucleus of reference for small towns. Moreover, the United Nations (UN) stressed that disparities between rural and urban areas are pronounced and still growing over time. Globally, people in rural areas lack access to modern energy services, which affects productivity, educational and health services, exacerbating poverty, among other things. Given this reality, the following research questions arise: how can we act to reverse this reality? Are there examples of transformation in rural contexts where community empowerment is a key strategy? This paper aims at describing the transformation process of a small rural municipality towards a sustainable development, in parallel to the activation of the local productivity that helps to eliminate the effects of rural depopulation. Therefore, the project ALMIA was established as an example of a sustainable village that is Almatret (Catalonia-Spain). The backbone of such project is the commitment to community empowerment, where the main results are the generation of networks with experts and researchers to help the municipality’s energy transition, the involvement of the local administration, the commitment to technological development, as well as the socio-community development. Moreover, the activities developed within the project ALMIA are aligned with the UNs Sustainable Development Goals, alignment that is analyzed in detail. Thus, this paper aims to further highlight existing sustainable development practices related to community empowerment in order to promote similar practices.


2019 ◽  
Vol 53 ◽  
pp. 113-124
Author(s):  
Iryna Dnistrianska

In this article, the history of studying the geography of the Ukrainian rural settlements is reviewed. The stages of research in view the exploration level of the rural locality in human geography are highlighted within such time limits: XV – the first half XIX cent., the secondary half XIX – the beginning of XX cent., the beginning of XX – till 1991, from 1991. At each of the stages is characterized the main scientific paradigms and explorations which was dedicated to the subject of the rural settlements. Paradigms and methods of studying exactly rural settlements evolved and developed under the influence of historical conditions: from purposefully-descriptive, statistical-descriptive, sectoral-statistical, ethnographic, anthropogeographic, demogeographic to an integral socio-geographical. During the research, it was concluded that geographical exploring of the rural settlements actually was fragmentary until the XX century. Simultaneously, the scientific achievements of the previous periods laid down to definite some methodological basis and source base for further research in this area. Closer to the middle of the XX century, the biggest explorations of Ukrainian rural settlements were conducted by V. Kubiyovych. Later, for ideological reasons, the issue of rural settlement geography was not the focus of attention among Ukrainian geographers of that time until Ukraine gained independence. The topic of the research of the Ukrainian village in scientific circles has risen to a new level and it’s geography according to the scientific centres in Kyiv, Lviv, Odesa, Chernivtsi, Kharkiv and Ternopil since 1991. Modern crisis of the demographic, social, economic state of the rural areas causes the necessity of interdisciplinary further exploration of this problem. Despite the social development and nowadays challenges in this article the main tasks and directions for future research of Ukrainian village are highlighted. Key words: the history of Ukrainian geography, rural settlements, rural population, methodology of geographical research.


2016 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
MIRCEA-VLAD MUREȘAN ◽  
ELENA-MARIA PICĂ

<p>This paper intends to inform the scientific and engineering community on the importance of wastewater treatment plants of small capacity, designed for rural settlements. By analysing the evolution of Romania’s population by towns, on 1st January 2010, the weight of urban population was 55.1 %, and the weight of the rural population was 44.9 % of the total population. The rural environment representing 44.9% of the total population is grouped into 2860 villages with a degree of connection to wastewater treatment plants of only 11.21 %. At the moment the design of treatment plants, regardless of the structure and size of the settlement, is performed in a non-differentiated way, using the same technological methods for urban and rural areas. The implementation of technical solutions that are use for urban areas in case of small and very small towns’ claims high investment costs and especially operational costs, the efficiency of these solutions being unsatisfactory, because of wrong adoption of sizing parameters, for example, the influent specific flow. From this paper will result, based on case studies, that the specific flow sizing treatment plants for rural areas is overrated, much too high, resulting in oversized treatment plants.</p>


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