engleski

Biodiversity change in agricultural area in northern Dalmatia (Croatia)

In the last few decades, rapid overgrowing of arable land has been observed in the area of Policnik municipality (northern Dalmatia). Favourable climatic conditions and the geographic position of the Policnik municipality are of paramount importance for the agriculture and the economy. The possibility of mapping vegetation using traditional methods is unlikely due to the size of the surface itself, the available human resources. Thus, the research carried out on the basis of remote sensing footage is more favourable than traditional methods. The mapping of habitats in area of the Policnik municipality was carried out using remote sensing using the archival and recent orthophoto footage in QGIS programme. This research sought to determine the intensity of the succession stage in the period from 1952 to 2019. Also, field research was used to determine whether data obtained by remote sensing matches the one obtained by field observation. The forest areas increased for the last 67 years and especially at the mark 4050 for as much as 0.91 km² or 25.7% of the total 3.5 km² surface area. Surfaces covered with maquis shrubland were in deficit precisely because of the degradation stage of the maquis shrubland transitioning into forest. The biggest change was at the location 4048 where the surface covered with maquis shrubland decreased by as much as 0.53 km², that is, by 15.93% of the total area. The most significant change in terms of the increase of the areas covered in grasslands was at the location 4048 where it amounted to 0.42 km² (10% of the total area). Creating maps has provided a more scenic view of three researched locations. The results correspond to the hypothesis about increasing succession precisely because of anthropogenic factors (lack of maintenance of parcels, abandoning the rural areas and transitioning to urban areas, etc.).

Biodiversity, Traditional agriculture, Succession, GIS, Spatio-temporal analysis

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