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Analysis of land consolidation projects and their impact on land use change, landscape structure, and agricultural land resource protection: case studies of Pilsen-South and Pilsen-North (Czech Republic)

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Abstract

Within the countries of the former socialist bloc, the changes in the politico-economic system at the end of the 1990s created a situation where it was (and still is) necessary to restore agricultural land resource property rights, to adjust the structure of agricultural land to current needs and to improve the current state of environmental resources. This case study covers 19 cadastral areas in the western part of the Czech Republic that were affected by the land consolidation process during 2000–2006. The main task of this study was to document how land consolidation processes could affect the change of land use and landscape structure and whether the land consolidation planners take into account the protection of natural resources. The increased acreage of grasslands was the most important change which has occurred in the land use in the 19 analysed cadastral areas, before and after land consolidations. In the studied area, the changes of land use involved 6.8 % of the total land consolidation area. This area of grassland significantly increased the protection of agricultural land from water erosion. In terms of changes in the landscape structure, the construction of new field road networks is the most important result. The results confirm the importance of land consolidation processes not only for the organization and recovery of ownership and cadastral records but also for the improvement of agricultural use of landscape and protection of natural resources such as soil, water and plant and animal communities.

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Acknowledgments

This paper was supported by a grant of the University of Southern Bohemia GAJU 081/2016/Z Water function in cultural landscape by the climate change, and by Project Czech Globe—Centre for Global Climate Change Impacts Studies, Reg. No. CZ.1.05/1.1.00/02.0073. The authors also wish to thank Ing. Václav Mazín, Ph.D. for providing input data. The experiments comply with the current laws of the Czech Republic.

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  1. Faculty of Agriculture, University of South Bohemia in Ceske Budejovice, Studentská 13, 37005, České Budějovice, Czech Republic

    Jana Moravcová, Monika Koupilová, Tomáš Pavlíček, Tomáš Kvítek & Jiří Pečenka

  2. Global Change Research Centre AS CR, v.v.i., Bělidla 986/4a, 603 00, Brno, Czech Republic

    František Zemek

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  1. Jana Moravcová
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Correspondence to Jana Moravcová.

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Moravcová, J., Koupilová, M., Pavlíček, T. et al. Analysis of land consolidation projects and their impact on land use change, landscape structure, and agricultural land resource protection: case studies of Pilsen-South and Pilsen-North (Czech Republic). Landscape Ecol Eng 13, 1–13 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11355-015-0286-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11355-015-0286-y

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