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Attila Kerényi, Professor of Geography, was born in 1943 in Sátoraljaújhely. He earned a degree as a teacher of Geography and Biology in 1967. During the 1980s, he gained national and international scientific recognition for his research on soil erosion processes, and completed his candidate dissertation in 1984. In the 1990s, he became nationally acknowledged for his publications, textbooks and scientific books on landscape and environmental protection, and earned an academic doctorate title in the topic. His scientific work was recognized with numerous awards. In 2020, he was awarded the Officer’s Cross of the Hungarian Order of Merit in recognition of his several decades of research and teaching activities which have greatly contributed to the renewal of geography education at the University of Debrecen. On the occasion of his 80th birthday, his colleagues interviewed Professor Kerényi about his family, profession, achievements and the state of global environmental systems.

Today, the countries of the world have to face several global challenges with regard to the plans they have developed together. The protection of the natural values of our country and their sustainable use is receiving more and more attention in today’s society. In order to achieve the above, a change of perspective in social strategy built on knowledge and professional training is inevitable. An environmental strategy paradigm shift emphasizing the protection of biodiversity, resources, and landscape cultivation is also necessary. The need for documents providing a basis for the paradigm shift is indubitable; however, more efforts are needed to induce fundamental changes by plans detailed in the documents.

The physical and emotional character of the landscape is an increasingly important ecosystem service factor in Hungary, too, and the strong identity of residents with the landscape is part of their well-being. Between 2016 and 2022, we prepared the landscape character map of the entire country. One of the essential elements of the project was that in four study areas - Sopron-Lake Fertő region (containing Sopron Mountains and Basin together with Lake Fertő), Gerecse Mountains, Tápió-vidék region and Tiszazug region - as landscape units, we tried to reveal the feelings of the residents related to the landscape using different methods. One of the most effective tools was surveys organised in workshops (personal or online) when we inquired about how the residents see landscape patterns, land use, and the changes in the surroundings of their settlements. One of the most important lessons learned from the study areas was that the local citizens usually have an indisposition for large-scale alterations of the accustomed environment, which leads to less familiar feelings and weakens the near natural character of the landscape. The results were compared with international experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Change of climate can be a remarkable turning point in the 21st century history of mankind. An important task of landscape geographic research is forecasting environmental, nature protection, land use demands and helping mitigation of disadvantageous processes from the aspect of society. ALADIN and REMO numeric climate models predict strong warming and lack of summer precipitation for the area of Hungary for the period between 2021 and 2100. There is a predicted growth in frequency of extreme weather events (heat waves, droughts hailstorms). Changes have been forecasted using data presented in table 1. For analyses of complex landscape geographic impacts of climate change the area of Hungary have been divided into 18 mesoregions with 5.000-10.000 km2 area each (figure 1). The main aspect of choosing the regions was that they should have homogeneous physical, geographic and land use endowments and, for this reason, they should react to climate change the same way. Relationships between landscape forming factors and meteorological elements examined by us have been taken into consideration. Results of analyses of impacts of the meteorological factors on the changes of relief through the mass movements are presented in this paper. Changes of landscape sensibility of mesoregions to mass movements have been presented in the last chapter for the periods between 2021-2050 and 2071-2100 according to numeric climate models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The degree of ecological fragmentation of landscapes is a useful index for landscape protection and planning. Strong fragmentation effect of the road system is originated from that the animals during their migrations sooner or later will face a strip of concrete. Up till now less attention is paid in the special literature to fragmentation effect of the building up, which obviously plays an important role in the ecological fragmentation of landscapes and in the shrinking of habitats. However, comparing the strength of their ecological barrier function it is not sure that a small village can block migration of plant and animal species more effectively than a motorway, defended by fences. Also the two main data for the ecological fragmentation seems to be the greatest diameter of the settlements - the settlements functions as a barrier for the migration - and the density of the roads and railroads. In the case of large settlements the extent of their inner parts, in the case of the roads the traffic intensities was taken into account, while in the case of railroads it was taken into consideration whether railway lines are single or double tracked. Values of the fragmentation index can be given in km/km2 for the 230 microregions of Hungary. Results were purified using a weighting, where the location of the protected natural areas compared to the situation of the given settlement, roads or railroads was taken into consideration. In the calculations it was taken into account as well that the agglomeration processes of the large settlements may restrict the ecological gates and corridors of the migration of plant and animal species. The Great Hungarian Plain shows weak, while the Transdanubian Hills show strong landscape ecological fragmentation. Values over the average occur in the southern Transdanubian macroregion, while all other macroregions are around or under the average, what reflects well the different spatial pattern of the settlement network of the macroregions. The author is convinced that maps presented here can provide a basis for landscape planning based on ecological aspects, despite problems with the weighting of raw values, results reflects well the real habitat fragmentation and migration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since it is Hungary's second largest river, the River Tisza is important both as a river and because of its active floodplain. The contaminations endanger the aquatic and the related living nature as well as the farming in the active floodplain. The water quality of the river is examined regularly by the competent authority but far less information is available about the active floodplain. More data is necessary in order to estimate the potential danger. In this paper the River Tisza and its tributaries were examined, especially considering the metal accumulation and its relation to the soil characteristics. We started to create the database in 2004 and several tasks were achieved: the metal content of the root zone in the active floodplain (horizontal distribution); the metal content of the upper 1 m zone in the active floodplain (vertical distribution); the general water chemical and isotope analyses and the metal content of the oxbow lakes near the River Tisza; the metal content of the sediments of the oxbow lakes. More than 300 surface soil samples, 18 soil profiles (18 x 50 samples) and 45 oxbow lakes were examined up to now. Cu, Co, Fe, Ni, Mn, Zn contents were determined in every case and As, Cd, Pb determinations were also carried out in reasonable cases. ArcGIS 9.0 was applied in order to create the spatial database and the statistical analyses of the data were carried out with SPSS. In this paper some case studies will be presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]