Vegetation history and cultural landscapes (Springer International Publishing AG)

This book focuses on vegetation history of cultural landscape in the south-western part of Slovakia. The Cultural landscape has been established and adopted aby a man and transformed permanently over the course of time, with ongoing changes (in environmental conditions, biodiversity, land use, etc.). The book analyses four dominant ecosystems typical for the cultural landscape affected by humans: woodlands, wetlands, grasslands and agricultural land. Each ecosystem is discussed in separate chapters. The chapters include (a) basic knowledge, general aspects, development processes, trends, interpretations, (b) a published or non-published case study based on own research of the author, and (c) list of references, bibliography. A set of maps related to the vegetation history and indices of geographical names and plants names are added to the book. The work provides essential starting points for the description of the typical regional characteristics of the cultural landscape, bearing in mind its future preservation.