Search

The city of Ljubljana lies at the intersection of various geomorphological regions that have strongly influenced its spatial organization. Prehistoric settlements were built on marshland, a Roman town was built on the first river terrace of the Ljubljanica River, and in the Middle Ages a town was built in a strategic position between the Ljubljanica River and Castle Hill. The modern city absorbed all usable space between the nearby hills. This paper reviews some relief features in Ljubljana, their influence on the city’s spatial development, and urban geoheritage. The results indicate new possibilities for urban geoheritage tourism in the Slovenian capital and its surroundings.

Copyright of Economic & Ecohistory / Ekonomska i Ekohistorija is the property of Society for Croatian Economic & Environmental History and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, Bojan Erhartic had a strong impact on Slovenian geography because he placed it on the map of countries where geographers deal with geomorphological heritage. He began his research path into the world of natural heritage with the study of geography. After receiving his bachelor's degree, he turned his attention to studying geodiversity, and this led him to issues concerning the evaluation of geomorphological heritage, especially in mountainous areas. Erhartic was among the first in Slovenian geography to deal with the aesthetic evaluation of geomorphological heritage. His interest in the »beauty of nature« stemmed from many years of planned work in (geographical) photography. The Anton Melik Geographical Institute of the Research Center of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts holds approximately 218,000 of his »geographical« photos, which he took during his many travels in more than forty countries on five continents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his long career as a researcher, Ivan Gams was focused mainly on karstology, although he contributed significantly to physical geography and geography of natural hazards as well. These topics are central to more than 80% of Gams's scientific and professional articles. Since Gams wrote more than 150 scientific articles in just a few decades, he is considered one of the most important Slovenian physical geographers, and rightly so. He was also the pioneer of studying natural hazards by means of modern geographical methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines soil erosion and erosion processes in badlands and presents the necessity and importance of their research. We present our findings regarding measurements of erosion processes that we carried out in a flysch region in the Dragonja River Basin in southwest Slovenia and in a dolomite region in central Slovenia in the Polhov Gradec Hills. Soil erosion was measured for various land-use types: an olive grove, a meadow, and a forest. Special emphasis was placed on interrill erosion, which is almost imperceptible without measurement. The measurement results served as a foundation for the importance of studying erosion processes as well as various applied aspects such as obtaining data for verification of erosion models, estimating damage caused by erosion, raising risk awareness due to erosion hazard, and improving coastal management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article deals with landslide geomorphology, which should be placed alongside fluvial, tectonic, karst, coast, or slope geomorphology. Slovenia is used as an example to present landslide susceptibility mapping and the relative landslide rate, which was used to quantify the relative role of landslides in recent relief development in comparison to other fluvio-denudational or erosion processes. Landslides are a geographical constant in certain areas, and in the past some researchers have also used expressions such as landslide-prone region for certain regions of Slovenia. The last section deals with geographers' role in landslide hazard research, which consists of several activities, although map-making remains the fundamental skill applied by geomorphologists. Methods of landslide hazard assessment are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study deals with geomorphological natural features (geomorphosites) relative to the natural processes that create, shape, or destroy such features. As a rule, geomorphologic processes are geographical constants in the landscape although some, due to their high magnitude or low frequency of occurrence, can be perceived as an exception (e.g., natural disasters). The importance of geomorphosites is relative to their size, rarity (spatial distribution), and duration (existence in time), which depend on both the frequency and magnitude of geomorphological processes and on the standards of the observer. Human influence and perception of geomorphosites is also important in this regard. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is a continuation of the article on soil erosion in submediterranean Slovene Istria from the first issue of the 2009 (49-1) journal. In this article we present geomorphic processes in the badlands of the same area (Dragonja River basin, SW Slovenia): sediment production from steep bare (Eocene) flysch slopes (rockwall retreat), movements of flysch debris along erosion gullies, and geomorphic processes on talus slopes. Sediment production of flysch rocks was determined by measurements on erosion plots and totals around 80 kg/m² per year on average, which means that steep bare flysch rockwalls retreat at a speed of 35 to 50 mm per year. The badlands not only contain flysch walls but also slopes already eroded by erosion rills and gullies. A dam in one of the erosion gullies with the catchment area of 0.1 ha captured 20 tons of debris in fourteen months. Monitoring on talus slopes of the badlands revealed their dual character because erosion here alternates with accumulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2005 and 2006 intensive measurements were made of various erosion-denudation processes in the Dragonja River basin in Slovene Istria (SW Slovenia). The measurements included geomorphic processes in the badlands: the rockwall retreat of steep bare flysch slopes, movements of flysch debris along erosion gullies, and geomorphic processes on talus slopes. At the same time, measurements of soil erosion were made in three different land use areas: bare soil in an olive grove, an overgrown meadow, and a forest. The results are presented in two parts. Part One presents the measurements of soil erosion, and Part Two in the next issue of the journal (No. 49-2) will present geomorphic processes in the badlands. The bedrock in Slovene Istria is Eocene flysch and the prevailing soil is carbonate rendzina. The climate of the area is submediterranean. The measurements of soil erosion made on one-meter-square closed erosion plots south of the village of Marezige revealed that the greater part of the annual erosion was caused by only a few major erosion events. Between May 2005 and April 2006, interrill erosion amounted to 9,013 g/m2 (90 t/ha) on bare soil in an olive grove with an inclination of 5.5° and an average weekly proportion of specific runoff of 23%, 168g/m2 (1.68 t/ha) on an overgrown meadow with an inclination of 9.4° and an average weekly proportion of specific runoff of 8%, and 391 g/m2 (3.91 t/ha) in a forest with an inclination of 7.8° and 415 g/m2 (4.15 t/ha) in a forest with an inclination of 21.4° with an average weekly proportion of specific runoff of 6% regardless of the inclination. The amount of precipitation during the reference year was slightly below the long-term average. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this journal, the authors (Zorn, Komac 2004) previously described the use of two deterministic methods for establishing the possibility of landsliding. This time, they take a step forward and using the example of the flysch Goriška Brda hills present the probability modelling of landslide hazard. In probability methods, the intensity and distribution of the processes are established by comparing indirectly determined landscape elements and the actual situation, while in deterministic methods, subjective decisions have an impact on the result. Authors have elaborated a probability map for landslides with a fixed return period using the Dempster-Shafer method on the basis of the data on 800 landslides that occurred with intensive precipitation in the fall of 1998. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This overview of the hydrogeographical characteristics of the Slovenian water balance 1971–2000 reviews three main water cycle elements: precipitation, evapotranspiration and runoff. Results show their spatial distribution and strong interdependency in by main river basins of Slovenia. Greatest amounts of water are in the Soča river basin and the smallest in the Slovenian part of the Mura river basin. Average yearly quantities of water in Slovenia for the period 1971–2000 are: precipitation 1579 mm, evapotranspiration 717 mm and runoff 862 mm. Compared with the water quantities data of 1961–1990 period, the precipitation is in same rank, the evapotranspiration increased and the runoff decreased. Despite being a »wet« country by world standards, available water resources in Slovenia are declining. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents two deterministic methods for the elaboration of landslide and rockfall source area maps and, considering human activity in the landscape, for the elaboration of landslide and rockfall risk maps. Risk maps are one of the fundamental bases for protection against natural disasters since they illustrate the risks to areas of human activity due to various natural processes. Using the weighting method and for the first time the matrix method, we established the extent of landslide and rockfall source areas in the Upper Savinja Valley and the risk due to these processes relative to settlement, roads, land use, and rivers and streams. The methodology for elaborating maps using both approaches is described in detail as well as the differences between them. The basic purpose of risk maps is to direct human encroachment in the landscape to safe areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study identifies factors that affect the speed of rockwall retreat of flysch cliffs between Kane Point and Strunjan on the Slovenian coast. Individual factors were combined in a geographical information system with mapped recent erosion features. The results indicate the influence of individual factors on the formation of erosion rills, gullies, surfwave breaks, slumps, and rockfalls; that is, flysch coast retreat processes. Special attention is dedicated to the occurrence of major slope processes, specifically slumps and rockfalls, which are an important contributing factor in cliff retreat. The article also presents the rockfall and slump risk of individual sections of the coast. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]