Geographical location and key sensitivity issues of post-industrial regions in Europe

Abstract

Primary objectives of our work were to spatially delineate post industrial areas of the EU-27 and indicate key environmental, social and economic sensitivity issues for these regions. The density of industrial sites within NUTS-x regions for EU-27 countries was assessed by using CORINE 2000 land cover layer. A development of postindustrial society in Europe represents a strong geographic diversity. There are distinct historical and current differences between regions which form major groups, comprising similar internal characteristics and definable trends in environmental and socioeconomic sense. Regions grouped into postindustrial clusters are fundamentally different from the European average, and are facing specific problems related to global market and political changes. Eastern postindustrial regions can be characterized as socially and economically weak, exhibiting high unemployment rate, low GDP, negative population growth and a strong environmental pressure, represented by a high density of dump sites. Most of the western EU postindustrial areas have been successfully recovered and moved into new economy as shown by most of the indicators. In urban postindustrial zones, however, emission sources of pollutants seem to continually be a major problem--not necessarily in terms of exceeding thresholds, but through a remarkable difference in the amount of pollutants produced relative to other regions.

Assessing Land Use Changes in Polish Territories: Patterns, Directions and Socioeconomic Impacts on Territorial Management

“…An exceptionally large area was built in Poland despite the threat of floods or landslides. There is also no land reserves for public supra-local investments, e.g., for transport purposes [36][37][38][39][40][41]. The described problems could be even partially solved thanks to the implementation of the 'Concept of Spatial Development of the Country 2030 [32], which is an example of public policy, implemented in order to eliminate the effects of a disordered spatial management system in Poland.…”

Survey and typology of post-industrial landscape in Czechia

“…Územního naplnění pojmu "postindustriální krajiny" se prozatím odvážilo málo autorů (např. Kirk 2003;Ling, Handley, Rodwell 2007;Stuczynski et al 2009). Rovněž geografické vymezení (hranice i obsah) postindustriální krajiny zůstává velmi vágní a neurčité (viz Loures 2008).…”

“…Podle Linga, Handleye a Rodwella (2007) lze za postindustriální krajinu považovat území (na příkladu Dearne Valley) významně postižené těžbou surovin, vykazující četné opuštěné objekty, brownfieldy, ale také ovlivňované regeneračními programy a vyžadující odlišný, než konvenční přístup při rozhodování o jeho budoucnosti. Z originální představy vycházel Stuczynski et al (2009) při geografickém vymezování post-industriálních regionů v Evropské unii s podporou databáze CORINE LC 2000 a technologie GIS, registrující průmyslové, těžební a skládkové areály. Je zřejmé, že znalost výskytu různých typů postindustriálních krajin je primární podmínkou zaujmutí jakéhokoliv stanoviska k nim jak u státní administrativy, plánovacích a ochranářských organizací, tak developerů.…”

Top-down and Europe-wide versus bottom-up and intra-regional identification of key issues for sustainability impact assessment

“…Thus, the common ground for bottom-up institutional classification was the LAU level 2. In accordance with the topdown procedure, the classification was also done with cluster analysis and the number of clusters was aggregated to three classes within a case study (Stuczynski et al, 2009). …”

“…In addition, evidence-based expert knowledge was also considered for the identification of priority areas of European sensitive regions for the following reasons. The delineation of post-industrial zones or brownfields has just started at the NUTS levels 2 to 3 (Stuczynski et al, 2009). For mountains, relevant work on sustainability problems has already been done in earlier projects (Nordregio, 2004).…”