Abstract:The most frequent natural disasters in Slovakia are related to climatic events, in particular to the sudden intensive rains, quick run-off and unbalanced water regime. They induce soil erosion and accumulation, flash floods, landslides, overwhelming waterlogging and also draught. Since these events have an impact throughout the whole landscape -the forest, agricultural and urban landscape, which are under the management of different sectors, the integration of the sectoral planning tools for the mitigation of their consequences is inevitable. Integration is a difficult process of dual character: it requires the development of landscape-ecological methods applicable to land management tools on one side and the creation of legal provisions ensuring the transfer of those scientific principles to legislation, on the other side. This paper deals with both sides of this process in Slovakia.Key words: Landscape, mitigation, geosystem, spatial planning, legal tools Abstrakt: Inštitucionálne nástroje integrovaného manažmentu krajiny na Slovensku na zmiernenie dopadov klimatických zmien a iných prírodných hrozieb.Najčastejšie prírodné hrozby na Slovensku sú spojené s klimatickými zmenami, najmä s náhlymi intenzívnymi zrážkami, rýchlym odtokom a nevyrovnaným vodným režimom. Tieto spôsobujú eróziu a akumuláciu pôdy, prívalové povodne, zosuvy pôdy, nadmerné zamokrenie, taktiež vysychanie. Tieto udalosti prebiehajú v celej krajine -v lesoch, v poľnohospodárskej aj urbánnej krajine. Krajinu však manažujú rôzne odvetvia, preto na zmiernenie dopadov klimatických zmien je nevyhnutná integrácia odvetvových plánovacích nástrojov. Integrácia je zložitý proces duálneho charakteru -vyžaduje jednak vývoj krajinno-ekologických metód aplikovateľných do manažmentových nástrojov, jednak vypracovanie zákonných ustanovení, ktoré zabezpečia prenos vedeckých princípov do legislatívy. Článok predstavuje obe stránky tohoto procesu na príklade Slovenska.

The major problems of our environment have become mainstream themes in everyday life of the society, with corresponding moral, political, and financial consequences. The concept of ecosystem services (ESS) surely belongs to such mainstream popular topics regarded also by EU environmental strategies. Moreover, the right assessment and utilisation of ESS are without any doubt one of the precondition of sustainable development. In general, we can say that this concept has important influence on the spheres of economics and politics; these formulate demands towards the science, and consecutively, the science efforts to answer these demands. The paper is aimed at two goals: the first one is to zoom in on the landscape-ecological concept of ESS by the geosystem approach, for the correct understanding of the basic terms, such as as ecosystem, geosystem, landscape, utility values, and services. The second goal is to present examples of several types of ESS evaluation in different study areas using the integrated landscape-ecological (geosystem) approach. The methods used are based on the geosystem approach to the landscape; the process is based on the methods of landscape ecological planning. The results are the assessment of 4 types of ecosystem services on study areas.

Nowadays, changes in environment have become characteristic of notorious mainstream political topics, with a corresponding moral, political, and financial support. The presented article deals with the landscape-ecological scientific aspects of climatic changes and of ecosystem services. The research of both phenomena is based on the complex investigation of the geosystem and, as a second step, on the scientifically-based interpretation of the obtained results. The problem resides in the question concerning the capability of scientific institutions and teams to deal with these topics with scientific profoundness, taking into account intensive public pressure and high expectations.