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Land Cover Change and Diversified Rural Development – A Croatian Case Study

The environmental and land cover change is influenced by demographic, cultural and economic factors, physical characteristics of the environment itself, and their complex interactions. The question this paper focuses on is the connection between land cover change and dynamics of rural development in Croatia. The presented research is a part of a broader study which aims to produce a set of alternative future scenarios for Croatian rural areas in 2030 with the goal of encouraging informed and evidence- based public debate on rural futures. Land cover change trajectories are analysed using object- based analysis of LANDSAT and SPOT multi-spectral imagery for 1991, 2001 and 2011 using ArcGIS 10.0 and eCognition 9.0. By comparing the 1991, 2001 and 2011 datasets major environmental change trends are detected and quantified, which helps in discovering direct causes of environmental change. The results of land cover change analysis are compared with different developmental types of rural areas in Croatia, recognized by aggregative approach and techniques of multivariate analysis (factor and cluster analysis). The recognized types of rural areas confirm strong diversification of Croatian countryside (e.g. dynamic, demographically stronger areas, market oriented agricultural areas, economically diversified, mainly tourist areas, rural periphery etc.). Preliminary results confirm the hypothesis about the correlation between intensity and type of land cover change on the one side, and developmental dynamics of rural areas on the other.

land cover ; rural development ; rural areas ; typology ; Landsat ; SPOT ; Croatia

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