THE ANALYSIS OF THE SPATIAL STRUCTURE OF THE PATCHES IN THE POPRAD BASIN (SLOVAKIA).

The Poprad basin plays an important role in the Slovak Republic and it is one of the most densely populated basins in the Slovakia. For this particular aspect, a man greatly influenced the development of the landscape structure. In the examined period, the appearance of the basin as well as the proportion of individual elements was significantly changed. Chronologically, with regard to the relevant map bases, we observed the development of the landscape structure from 1785 to 2010. The aim of this paper is to analyze long-term changes in the structure of the individual patches on the basis of vector layers of the landscape structure. For the analysis, we used the Patch Analyst proprietary software that creates an extension of Arc GIS 10 software. Particularly from an environmental point of view, the knowledge of trends in the landscape structure as well as the specific characteristics of its various patches is important for the further development and direction of the examined area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]