Sustainability, Resilience and Population Ageing along Schengen’s Eastern Border

Abstract

Border and administrative divisions usually have considerable severe impacts on the economic growth and sustainable management of natural and human on both sides of the border. Schengen border regions mostly perform less well economically in comparison to non-border regions, and the citizens and businesses are facing all sorts of barriers on a day-to-day basis when crossing EU Schengen borders. Therefore, the research is focused on the resilience of the frontier areas of Slovakia and Ukraine, both experiencing rising out-migration, demographic ageing and, therefore, less resistance to threats. The proposed Regional Resilience Index (RRI) is based on three resilience capacity domains: (1) The entrepreneurial domain containing partial indicators of industrial diversity, entrepreneurial activity, unemployment and the possibilities to save money; (2) the socio-demographic domain, whose partial indicators are ageing and the health status of the population, and (3) the domain of interconnectedness of communities with its partial indicators of public infrastructure and settlement stability. By calculating RRI, the overall resilience capacity of the monitored districts of Slovakia and Ukraine is estimated. The index shows that the border factor is significant in explaining the differences in each of the index’s three domains. In addition, migration for work is shown to be a key factor increasing vulnerability and is therefore studied in more detail. The prediction and evaluation of risks associated with strategic and territorial planning is a necessary approach in relation to extraordinary events and minimization of consequences.

Risk Analysis Related to Impact of Climate Change on Water Resources and Hydropower Production in the Lusatian Neisse River Basin

“…Taking into consideration potential changes in water conditions, appropriate measures have to be undertaken in order to minimize the effects of climate change in the future. Numerous analyses showed that undertaking such measures related to reasonable management of water resources is a crucial issue in the case of many countries and in various climate zones [9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25].…”

Application of the EFQM Model to Assess the Readiness and Sustainability of the Implementation of I4.0 in Slovakian Companies

“…It seems that the timely capture of the onset of the mentioned industrial revolution is, for particular industrially oriented countries, of essential significance, not only from the point of view of their competitiveness [1,2]. Globalization and risk factors arising therefrom (data safety, information sensitivity and vulnerability, readiness for crisis situations) will verify the effect of digitalization on the continuity of business management [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10]. Furthermore, in Slovakia, which is industrially oriented, this issue is dealt with by numerous experts from practice, academicians, and often, unfortunately, by politicians too.…”

Perceived Serviceability of Outplacement Programs as a Part of Sustainable Human Resource Management

“…Socio-demographic capacity relies (beside other factors) on population ageing in a district and the health of its population because these factors influence the ability and the possibility to respond to external shocks [88] such as redundancies in the region, which will contribute to increasing unemployment. It is important to respect age diversity beside other factors when pursuing the dismissal and the need to provide outplacement.…”