Land use reflects the needs, demands and values of human society. We can see two antagonistic trends of land use change in Slovakia over the past few decades. Land use change towards more intensive in some areas (vicinity of cities, highways, lowlands), but others (uplands and mountains with traditionally agricultural used) are abandoned and left to their own spontaneous dynamic. The abandonment of agriculture is a pattern common to all industrialized countries, especially in hilly and mountain ranges (Farina, A., 2007).

The Coteaux de Gascogne region, an upland area in south-western France, is a site where studies related to the future of landscapes and the sustainability of natural resource management are well documented. The local agricultural system is induced by a “house centred” society with the particularity of passing on the inheritance and farm estate identically from one generation to the next. This system generates a mosaic landscape made up of field crops, grasslands and woodlots.

The effective use of natural resources is one of the important issues of today. GIS is recently used as an effective tool for solution of complicated problems. Land use researches in landscape planning studies can be done reliably and practically by the use of GIS. Depending on the increase of demands on coastal zones, the determination of land uses and conservation of them gets more important today. Within this context, in this study, the past and the present land uses of Tekirdağ coastal zone is pointed out.

Development of a cartographic mdel for the forest site types delineation in the Belgian Ardenne. The paper presents an original method dealing with the forest site types delineation. The suggested method consists in integrating a typological key in a GIS aiming at producing a thematic map that describes forest site types. Data used are the soil map of Belgium (digitized at the scale 1:20,000) and a digital elevation model built from a topographic map (scale 1:10,000). The typological key is mainly based on the methodology used by Thill et al.

En los últimos años han sido incuantificables las aplicaciones que se han llevado a cabo mediante la utilización de las denominadas Tecnologías de la Información Geográfica, bien a través del empleo de los sistemas de información geográfica (SIG), bien mediante el manejo y el análisis de imágenes de satélite (Teledetección), o bien mediante la aplicación de técnicas estadísticas de análisis multivariantes.

Urban green areas are important sites established for recreational, ecological, and aesthetical purposes. Urban green areas are different form the other green space usage, can be used by the all parts of the community. Public green space standards, construction law No. 3194 of the plan to be built on the basis of 10 m² per person in the regulations "active green space" is defined as. About the amount of green space in the regulation applies to active green space. Active green space are defined parks, children's playground and play areas.

The paper presents the spatial distribution of ecological suitability for grape growing in Bucium vineyard (Romania), viticultural area with ecological characteristics representative for northern vineyards. The study is based on a complex methodology implying use of remote sensing, Geographical Information Systhems (GIS), climatic data, topographic and pedologic maps. Research reveal the low ecological potential of Bucium area, specialized, traditionally, in white table wines, sparkling wines and white quality wines.

The main aim of this study was to determine the dependence of yield and selected soil properties on topography of the experimental field by using topographical data (elevation, slope and flow accumulation). The topography and yield data were obtained from a yield monitor for combine harvester, soil properties data were taken from sampling points of our experimental field. Initially, the topographical parameters of elevation and slope were estimated and then the Digital Elevation Model (DEM) grid was created.

Land fragmentation is a problem in Europe, and Estonia is not an exception in this respect. Parcel size is widespread characteristic to describe the level of fragmentation. The aim of the study is to find out if there is difference of fragmentation among different groups of landholdings by size. In order to characterise land fragmentation, were calculated the Januszewski and Schmook indexes, average parcel size and average distance from the gravity centre of each landholding to its parcels. Results showed a high level of fragmentation of Estonian agricultural landholdings.

We introduce a simple method for estimating the changes of nitrate concentrations in surface waters regarding the land use modification. Stream and drainage water nitrate concentrations in prevailingly agricultural catchments of three different scales located in the Crystalline complex of the Czech massif, Czech Republic, were included in this study. Water quality samples were collected through the years 1992-2006 at monthly and bi-monthly intervals.