Evaluating Land Use Changes by Landscape Historical Examinations at the Great Pasture of Hajdúbagos (Eastern Hungary)

Abstract

"At an Eastern Hungarian protected grassland, namely at the Lesser Mole Rat (Spalax leucodon Nordmann, 1840). Reservation of Hajdúbagos Nature Conservation Area, grazing animal husbandry formed the façade of the land for hundreds of years. Though, due to the unfavourable changes of the last few decades in this sector of agriculture, the primeval sand steppe meadow (Pulsatillo hungaricae-Festucetum rupicolae (Soó 1938) Borhidi 1996) plant association is endangered by the increasingly accelerating succession. To stop or at least to slow down this process the rehabilitation of the area could be necessary. The target of the restoration ecology actions is to restore the previously existing, more favourable natural status of a particular area. However, the lack of knowledge according to the conditions that refer to the original circumstances often complicates this activity. To define these reference conditions the exploration of the history of a certain landscape is very important as restoration is only successful if the restored ecosystem is similar to the original. We examined the land use changes of the research area during the last 250 years according to historical and present geographical databases using GIS technology and completed this work with the study of archival data. By our results we stated that these examinations are crucial in the proper - agriculture related - management of protected areas."