Abstract
Agricultural land extensification processes represent the main trend of landscape change in Czechia since the late 19th century. This paper will be focused primarily on the discussion of data, indicators and tools used to evaluate losses of agricultural land (especially arable land) and extensification processes in different regions of the Czech countryside: grassing and afforestation.
The main objective is to evaluate the regional patterns of these processes and special attention will be paid on differences in regions with various natural and social conditions. First, the long-term evaluation of these processes will be presented.
Different data sources (both land use and land cover) are used and compared. Cadastral data is used in the study and have been processed into an updated Database of long-term land use changes in Czechia (1845-2015).
The main part concentrates in a similar way on current changes since 1990. Qualitative distinction from previous time periods will be discussed as well as new data types available (remote sensing).
Different methods lead to quite different resulting images of the importance of land use changes in diverse regions of Czechia, therefore, the aim of this paper is to identify the most important areas ("hot spots") of actual agricultural land losses in the Czech countryside. Then current trends will be seen from the long-term perspective also and their driving forces will be discussed.
The other objective is to put the changes in the Czech landscape into context of changes in other European countries.