Marginal and less-favored regions are characterized by negative migration balance, lower living standards, aging of the population, a lower number of employment opportunities, lower educational level, and lower investments in the territory. Gemer is one of these regions in Slovakia. On the other hand, the Gemer region has a very interesting history and many cultural monuments, nature protection areas, and UNESCO World Heritage sites that create options for tourism development. The monuments of the Gothic Road have the potential for religious tourism. Karst relief and the sites and monuments related to mining present on the Iron Road provide suitable conditions for geotourism and mining tourism. Local villages contain traditional agricultural landscapes, which create suitable conditions for active rural tourism associated with creative tourism or agrotourism. There is also the promising possibility of cross-border cooperation with Hungary. However, the revenues from tourism do not reach the same level as in other, similar regions of Slovakia. The main failings of tourism development include the insufficient coordination of destination marketing organization stakeholders, lack of care for monuments, and underestimation of the potential of Roma culture and art production. However, analyzed state policy instruments on the promotion of tourism did not mitigate but rather exacerbated regional disparities in Slovakia.

The extensive construction of drainage systems in the lowlands and flood plains of Slovakia has significantly changed the landscape and runoff ratios of rivers. Our study focuses on the assessment of the benefits provided by the ecosystems of water ditches and their catchment areas. Ditches and their buffer zone, similarly to other artificial anthropogenic elements in the country, fulfil various landscape-ecological functions and provide different ecosystem services (ESs) to human populations and society. As study areas, we chose ditches and their 1km buffer zones in the Podunajská nížina (P) lowland and Východoslovenská nížina (V) lowland (Slovakia). There are notable differences between these two selected lowlands. Hence, there are also differences in their potential to provide various ESs. Based on a re-evaluation of the present state of the ditches, we evaluated nine ESs related to three main groups of ESs, using the Common International Classification of Ecosystem Services (CICES). We assessed the ESs and benefits provided by ditches and their buffer zone in two ways: (1) ES assessment by experts and (2) biophysical assessment of ESs and their benefits based on an integrated assessment framework (relations between pressures, ecological status, and delivery of ESs). Finally, we compared the potentials for provisioning of the study areas. The study area in the V lowland has the highest potential to provide "Lifecycle maintenance, habitat and gene pool protection" benefits, and the study area in the P lowland has the highest potential to provide "Surface water for nondrinking purposes."

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