Divergence and conflicts in landscape planning across spatial scales in Slovakia: An opportunity for an ecosystem services-based approach?

Abstract

This paper provides a detailed analysis of environment policy implementation in national, regional and local landscape planning in Slovakia. The policy and strategic documents are assessed from the perspective of the ecosystem services (ES) concept which integrates environmental and economic objectives of the landscape planning. This paper builds on three main empirical elements: (1) review of key national policies in respect to landscape planning, (2) review of key local and regional planning, strategic and assessment documents, (3) stakeholder interviews and focus groups. Our results indicate that spatial planning and assessment processes in Slovakia based on legislation and regulations for individual sectors are mainly contradictory in some cases, rather than encompassing integrated (landscape) planning procedures. The ES concept has not been considered in any planning tools across scales. These results were found to be similar with respective EU policies, in which the limited uptake of the ES concept was also observed. Finally, the paper presents recommendations which can enhance spatial planning processes in Slovakia; using an ES-inspired integrated framework for landscape assessment and decision-making. Such improvement of planning and decision-making procedures can be exploited in real-world solutions, and provide longterm benefits for human well-being while still retaining links to ecosystem functions and processes.

Long-Term Land Use Changes Driven by Urbanisation and Their Environmental Effects (Example of Trnava City, Slovakia)

“…The city administration should respond by reasonable spatial planning and management to all current challenges of spatial development, trends and environmental issues [59,60,77,[110][111][112]. This occurs in many cities, and although also to a certain extent in Trnava, the crucial problem here is implementation of the planning documents in actual practice.…”

“…While this will be linked to the great extent of agricultural area land-appropriation, the current deficit of ecologically positive elements in the countryside would be solved and the overall quality of the area's environment would be significantly improved. However, this heavily depends on whether these proposals will actually be implemented, because Trnava's current urban development practice tends to reduce green areas rather than encourage their spread [77].…”

“…There is strong emphasis on sustainable urban development at international and EU levels, with the consideration of main environmental issues and challenges. Such modern planning and management in urban areas could be based, for example, on concepts of "Nature based solutions [107]", "Green Infrastructure" [108] or the widely accepted "Ecosystem services" approach [77,110,117,118]. Implementing these concepts in a systematic and holistic manner in landscape-planning processes has the potential to foster integration between the environmental and social and economic aspects of ecosystem utilization [110,117,118], and this could provide a challenge for both Trnava and most European cities.…”

Integrative Assessment of Land Use Conflicts

“…In this case, the process (in civilized countries) follows the sequence: assessment of current situation, formulation of demands/interests/requests, planning/projecting, and realization/execution. All these steps are regulated by different institutional tools, such as economic and social conditions, legislation, methods, and normative and technical conditions [42].…”

The Quality Assessment of Forests in the Cadastral District of Zvolen (Slovakia)

“…on Nature and Landscape Conservation, as amended, because they highlight the multivalued economic, social and cultural benefits derived from biodiversity and ecosystems. However, content of both documents does not describe the approaches to be used in direct assessment, and they do not include directives on how ecosystem services assessments are to be implemented in practice (Bezák et al, 2017). Thus, outputs of this work could be understood as a model case providing a guide for the implementation of knowledge on cultural ecosystem services into urban plans incentives improving forest cultural functions (defined in CICES, 2013).…”