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Dolines are concave circular karst landforms that are clearly presented by topography data (topographic maps), especially on high-resolution LiDAR digital terrain models (DTM). In the karst landscape, man has reshaped natural dolines through centuries by collecting rocks and soil to increase the flat area of tillable (cultivated) land at the bottom of the doline. By this human-induced process, the natural doline was reshaped into a cultivated doline. Cultivated dolines have a rich historical legacy of use for local agricultural production, high geomorphological value for geodiversity and present an important habitat supporting biodiversity. They are an element of agro-karstic landscape (paysage agro-karstiques) and are distinctive of Mediterranean karst landscapes like Dinaric karst, Central massive, Apulia etc. Most of the cultivated dolines have been recently abandoned, and covered by forest, thus the human impact is not evident anymore so clearly.In most studies on natural characteristics and processes in dolines, there is no distinct separation between natural and cultivated dolines and no consideration of past agricultural land use. Thus, the main goal of this study/presentation is to provide a geoinformatics methodology to separate cultivated dolines from natural dolines based on differences in micro-topography by using recent very high-resolution LiDAR topography data and historical cadastral maps (19th century).Using visualized LiDAR DTM the most evident morphometric differences between the natural and cultivated doline landforms were recognized. Cultivated dolines were characterized by (1) a circular concave landform with a flat bottom (2) the presence of anthropogenic elements, such as circular stonewalls at the upper doline edge, which provides evidence of stone-removal from the doline slopes (smooth surface). Additionally, in the 19th-century cadastral maps, only individual dolines with important land use were marked as special lots. Given the rural character of the landscape during that time, the only land use recorded in the concentric lots of the dolines was agricultural use (arable fields, gardens, meadows, and pastures). As a result, the number, location and surface coverage of cultivated dolines were precisely defined for classical karst regions in SW Slovenia. Based on Lidar data, bowl-shaped cultivated dolines with flat bottoms were separated from non-cultivated funnel-shaped dolines.

Increasingly severe hydrological extremes are predicted for the Pannonian Basin as one of the consequences of climate change. The challenges of extreme droughts require the adaptation of agriculture especially during the intense growth phase of crops. For dryland farming, the selections of the optimal land use type and sustainable agricultural land management are potential adaptation tools for facing the challenges posed by increased aridity. To this end, it is indispensable to understand soil moisture (SM) dynamics under different land use types over drought-affected periods. Within the framework of a Slovenian–Hungarian project, soil moisture, matric potential and rainfall time series have been collected at three pilot sites of different land use types (pasture, orchards and a ploughland) in SW Hungary since September 2018. Experiments were carried out in soils of silt, silt loam and clay loam texture. In the summers (June 1 to August 31) of 2019 and 2022, we identified normal and dry conditions, respectively, with regard to differences in water balance. Our results demonstrated that soil moisture is closely controlled by land use. Marked differences of the moisture regime were revealed among the three land use types based on statistical analyses. Soils under pasture had the most balanced regime, whereas ploughland soils indicated the highest amplitude of moisture dynamics. The orchard, however, showed responses to weather conditions in sharp contrast with the other two sites. Our results are applicable for loamy soils under humid and subhumid temperate climates and for periods of extreme droughts, a condition which is expected to be the norm for the future.

Geoscience has been devoting increased attention to understanding the complex pathways and flows of material, energy, and the multidimensional coupling between various geological systems. This understanding includes the “concept of connectivity”, which provides an overall framework better to investigate hydrological systems. So far, the concept has largely been used for fluvial geomorphic systems, whereas we intend to use it within the karst system. In relation to the concept of connectivity between the karst surface and subsurface, hydrological, sediment, and geochemical connectivities are the most relevant from the perspective of geoscience and to measuring human impacts through a long time span.Our main interest is to study the direct flow between enclosed karst depressions (solution dolines) and near-surface caves (50 m below the surface) that are prone to human influence. The doline-cave coupling zone represents the upper part of a karst aquifer for which specific connectivity characteristics between dolines and near-surface caves can be identified. Polina peč Cave (NW Dinaric Karst) was selected as a case study cave. We used geoinformatic methods (three-dimensional (3D) laser scanning) and available data (Registry of maps, Lidar DEM 1x1m, optical remote sensing data), geomorphometric analyse, geological mapping and surveying. With precise georeferencing (using the GNSS system), we placed the 3D point cloud of the cave in a geographical coordinate system, compared 3D cave map with the surface map (using existing national aero-laser scanning data – Lidar DEM 1x1m), and selected dolines that are most directly connected to cave. The results were controlled and further improved by geophysical methods (electrical resistivity tomography/ERT).