Volume 44, Number 2

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Spatial consequences of biogas production and agricultural changes in the Czech Republic after EU accession: mutual symbiosis, coexistence or parasitism?

Stanislav Martinát, Petr Dvořák, Bohumil Frantál, Petr Klusáček, Josef Kunc, Marián Kulla, Tatiana Mintálová, Josef Navrátil, Dan van der Horst

Received: June 1, 2013
Accepted: June 25, 2013                                                                                                      

pp. 75–92

Abstract
Renewable sources of energies and its support have been recently experiencing wide public debate in the Czech Republic that varies from agreement to complete denial. Nevertheless support from national and EU sources is factor that heavily influenced dynamic development of this sector in last decade. Anaerobic digestion plants are one of options for production of renewable energies (biogas in this case) that have experienced next to solar plants the most important increase of its installed capacities. This contribution first aims to analyse phenomenon of anaerobic digestion plants, its legal, strategic support, supporting financial incentives, individual types of such plants, and secondly based on available statistical data to analyse spatial distribution of agricultural anaerobic digestion plants. On basis of comparison of data for increasing biogas production and declining agriculture in regions of the Czech Republic basic consequences are deduced. In context of spatial distribution of agricultural anaerobic digestion plants structures of sowing areas and intensities of animal husbandry are shortly discussed. We can conclude that agricultural anaerobic digestion plants have been increasingly influencing the structure of sowing areas of agriculture of the Czech Republic and such facilities are in both agricultural sector and wide society perceived more as alternative source of income than contribution to environment protection, limitations for greenhouse gases production and climate change.

Key words
anaerobic digestion plants, agriculture, Czech Republic, spatial differentiation

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Cross-border co-operation projects in the Hungarian-Slovak border area

Richard Hakszer

Received: September 4, 2013
Accepted: November 22, 2013                                                                                           

pp. 93–109

Abstract
Nowadays, efficient development of regions and settlements is unimaginable without utilization of opportunities from tender or project sources. This is especially true for settlements in border areas, which regarding to their location near to the border and far from centralized industry and community in the centre of the state are mainly featured by bad economic and social situation. In order to support the development of borderlands, cross-border co-operation programmes were founded by the European Union and its predecessor organization in 1990s. In this study, the theoretical issues of cross-border co-operation are introduced, focusing on the Hungarian-Slovak border region. Also discussed are projects (and their applications and outputs) which were implemented in that area. It is focused on successes and also difficulties during the implementation process of CBC programmes in general and especially in the project level. The paper discusses the above mentioned themes on the regional (NUTS III) and district (NUTS IV) levels and in some cases on the settlement-pairs or very small areas, it also deals with the differences of the successful applicants and projects with their reasons and temporal changes, especially focused on regional disparity. Another way for analysing the Hungarian-Slovak CBC programmes is comparing all that were concerned with our border area during the pre-access programme PHARE CBC, and after joining the EU the Hungary-Slovakia-Ukraine Neighbourhood Programme and also Hungary-Slovakia CBC Programme 2007-2013, which is implementing today. In the paper, according to the previous I seek an answer to the question of which part of the examined NUTS III and IV level regions were the most active in submission of project proposals and in successfulness in tendering and also in implementation of CBC projects subsidised by the EU funds.

Key words
Hungary, Slovakia, cross-border co-operation (CBC), border, region, districts, EU funds, PHARE CBC, Interreg IIIA, Hungary-Slovakia-Ukraine Neighbourhood Programme, Hungary-Slovakia Cross Border Co-operation Programme 2007-2013, NUTS IV

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Reconstruction of the discussion on the final delimitation of regions in the year 1949: a contribution to the development of the regional administrative division of the Czech lands

Jan Daniel

Received: October 26, 2013
Accepted: December 12, 2013                                                                                          

pp. 111–124

Abstract
The paper deals with the re-enactment of the discussion on the final version of the Czechoslovak regional reform of 1949. On the basis of the archival research, we can conclude that the original idea of the delimitation of the regions is fundamentally different from the final version, in terms of both the number of regions and the selection of the regional centres, as well as regarding the definition of the regional boundaries. This article briefly introduces seven basic working definitions of the delimitation of the regions that were evaluated prior to the approval of the final version. The first three variants (the so-called Plan A, the larger regions plan, and Plan B) were based on different theoretical and methodological foundations and represent different concepts of the delimitation of the regions. The subsequent variants were created by successive corrections to Plan B. The approval process itself can be simply divided into two main phases. During the first phase the discussions on Plans A to D took place and resulted in a rough framework for the delimitation of the regions that was based on the final determination of the regional capitals and an approximate delimitation of the regional borders. In the second phase, the partial territories that were subject to dispute, mainly situated on the borders of regions, were discussed.

Key words
regional administrative division, 1949 regional reform, archival research, Czech lands

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Air quality assessment as an environmental factor of the quality of life

Martin Jurek, Lenka Matúšová, Aleš Létal

Received: November 29, 2013
Accepted: December 17, 2013                                                                                         

pp. 125–135

Abstract
This paper proposes a tool for air quality assessment that could be used among environmental factors in the studies of quality of life. It also demonstrates performance of a set of air quality related questions that might be considered part of questionnaire surveys for the subjective dimension of the quality of life. A measure of relative risk of exposure to particulate matter is proposed for quantification of adverse health effects of air pollution on the general population, on children under 5 years of age or on persons over 30 years of age. The city of Ostrava was selected as a study area for its long-term issues with air pollution in order to test the proposed instruments in a location where air quality is the most likely to affect the quality of life in the Czech Republic.

Key words
air quality, quality of life, relative risk, questionnaire survey, Ostrava

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