Landscape diversity is a complex phenomenon that encompasses the multitude of landscape typologies, as well as the spatial structure of each individual landscape and its landscape patterns. While the idea that landscape diversity plays an important role in biodiversity and ecosystem stability and is strongly expressed in Slovenian territory is generally acknowledged, we do not yet have a comprehensive overview nor landscape assessment in terms of landscape diversity or systematic research of the environmental factors that affect it. Marušič and colleagues laid the foundations of Slovenian landscape diversity research. In their study, they have made a comprehensive and qualitatively based assessment of landscape diversity. The objective of our research was to present a quantitative approach to assessing the structural diversity of the cultural landscape, using the moving window method and linear modelling. In addition to the assessment of diversity, our other research goals were to compare landscape diversity from two different time periods and to analyse the impact of environmental factors on diversity of local landscapes. The main conclusions of the research are that landscape diversity changes with spatial scale, the perception of diversity depends on the reference unit and also that landscape quality and landscape diversity are two different aspects of understanding landscape, which should not be equated. As such, we cannot claim that landscape that is more diverse is also, of better quality.
|
