engleski

ENVIRONMENTAL VULNERABILITY AS A TOOL IN PLANNING FOR SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURAL LANDSCAPES

Agriculture is the most important land use in Europe and because of it plays a central role in the quality of the wider environment. Whilst European landscapes have experienced rapid changes in agricultural land use and have changed considerably in recent times, further changes are likely as a result of the influences of policy reform, socio-economics and climate change. Therefore the need for sustainability in agriculture is putting a high demand on methodologies in planning of agricultural uses that will ensure it. One of the methodologies developed within the landscape planning area offers environmental vulnerability as tool to assess sustainability of the proposed land use at planning stage. This paper presents a vulnerability approach for integration of environmental protection issues within the planning process. The methodology of vulnerability modelling is presented in a case study of agricultural land-use within the planning process for a rural area of continental Croatia. The vulnerability models were developed for specific environmental qualities that will be exposed to impacts by a proposed agricultural activity. Vulnerability maps allowed the identification of environmental protection interests to be located in space. Such models are relevant tool for representation of possible degradations due to a landscape change and can be a promising starting point to determine which agriculture uses are sustainable before they are implemented – at the planning stage.

planning; sustainability; agriculture; landscape; environment; vulnerability

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