Search

On Sunday, August 13, 2023, Stanislav Martinát – a respected Czech geographer and member of the Editorial Board of Moravian Geographical Reports journal – died after a short serious illness at the age of 47. Despite his relatively young age, Stanislav Martinát was one of the most productive and the most cited Czech geographers. He is the author or coauthor of over 100 peer-reviewed articles, of which more than 70 were published in journals indexed in the Web of Science database. This article is a collection of personal memories from people from different workplaces from several countries who had the opportunity to work with Stanislav (Standa) and to share a part of their life stage with him.

Coal energy landscapes have changed dramatically over the last decades, including geographic shifts in production and consumption, technological changes that have reduced labour demand and led to relatively new mining practices (e.g. invasive mountain-top approaches), changed economic footprints, a shutdown of capacities or a complete end of mining in many regions with massive impacts on regional and local economies, community well-being, social capital, et cetera. Then the Covid-19 pandemic and Russia´s invasion of Ukraine have fundamentally affected the global economy, disrupted energy markets, and shattered existing estimates about development trends, challenging the progress and speed of the low-carbon energy transition and coal phase-out. This article provides a brief reflection on the changing landscapes of coal and their possible futures, and serves as an introduction to the Special Issue of Moravian Geographical Reports on “The death of coal in the energy transition? Regional perspectives”.

New empirical evidence regarding theories of the resource curse and regional resilience in the context of energy transitions is presented in this article. Our analysis aimed to answer the questions of what the principal differences are between coal mining and other regions in the Czech Republic, and what are the determinants of population decline, unemployment and populism as some of the key indicators of socioeconomic transformation. Unlike most current European studies focusing on NUTS2 or NUTS3 regions, we deal with data for districts (LAU1). The analysis revealed that (in aggregate) coal mining and post-mining districts are worse off in terms of air quality, population vitality, labour market and social capital indicators. It would be problematic for policy implications to consider coal mining and post-mining districts as homogenous categories, however, since there are significant inter-group and intra-group differences in most indicators. Coal mining itself and its decline did not prove to be a direct determinant of population loss, unemployment, and support for populism. The factors significantly affecting these phenomena are geographical (peripherality, urbanisation, population density) and socioeconomic (education level, business activity). In this respect, a provocative question is offered: to what extent is it effective and sustainable to economically support coal mining regions in their existing industrial production structures and population scales, and whether the current processes of reterritorialisation and depopulation can be considered a natural process. The fact that coal mining districts are at the forefront in the implementation of wind energy may be seen as positive, but it raises questions about spatial concentration, and the environmental justice of renewable energy development.

The geography of ageing is addressed in this article by providing new empirical evidence about the significant role of daily activities on the perceptions of isolation and loneliness. The developed model of socio-spatial isolation is based on data from time-space diaries and questionnaires completed by older adults living in three cities in the Czech Republic. The study suggests that socio-spatial isolation is a multicomponent (consisting of passivity, isolation and loneliness components), place-dependent and gendered issue. The passivity is significantly associated with the income and leisure sport activities. The isolation can be well predicted by the age, gender and education, and the frequency of work and specific leisure activities, which are constrained by health conditions, financial opportunities and spatial mobility. Particularly trips to nature, sport activities, cultural events, get together with friends, and visits to restaurants have a positive effect on reducing isolation. Women, particularly those who raised more children, more likely feel lonely in old age when family contacts are reduced. Visits to restaurants, shopping malls and cultural events have a positive effect on reducing loneliness. A constrained mobility and higher time consumption for necessary activities also proved to be an age-related and gendered problem. In this respect, policy interventions should seek to improve flexible work opportunities, the digital skills of older people, and the accessibility and safety of public transport with regard to perceived constraints, which is gaining in importance in the Covid-19 era.

In this year, 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic has imposed new challenges for most human activities. Time-geography is a theoretical approach with great potential for analysing the consequences of the new disease and other disturbances, and this article aims at identifying possible developments of interest for the approach in the post-Covid era. The article addresses challenges that emerge for time-geographic research from the perspective of massive changes in human behaviour, regarding time-space activity patterns, caused by the globally diffusing disease. The implications of the pandemic are discussed with respect to four areas: (i) time-geographic techniques; (ii) activities and rhythms; (iii) activity spaces; and (iv) social issues and perceptions. The time-geographic concepts to be scrutinised are constraints, virtual time space and bundles, and stations and paths. In addition, the article introduces this Special Issue of the Moravian Geographical Reports on ‘Current issues, methods and applications in time-geography’, contributions which for evident reasons were written before the onset of the pandemic.

Issues related to the evolving role of citizen science and open science are reviewed and discussed in this article. We focus on the changing approaches to science, research and development related to the turn to openness and transparency, which has made science more open and inclusive, even for non-researchers. Reproducible and collaborative research, which is driven by the open access principles, involves citizens in many research fields. The article shows how international support is pushing citizen science forward, and how citizens’ involvement is becoming more important. A basic scientometric analysis (based on the Web of Science Core Collection as the source of peer reviewed articles) provides a first insight into the diffusion of the citizen science concept in the field of Geography, mapping the growth of citizen science articles over time, the spectrum of geographical journals that publish them, and their citation rate compared to other scientific disciplines. The authors also discuss future challenges of citizen science and its potential, which for the time being seems to be not fully utilized in some fields, including geographical research.

Wind energy research is dominated by studies of local acceptance (or not) of wind farms and comparative studies at a national level. Research on the spatial differentiation of wind energy developments at the regional level is still insufficient, however. This study provides new empirical evidence for the extent to which regional differences in the deployment of wind energy are related to specific environmental and socioeconomic factors, by a statistical analysis of data for districts in the Czech Republic. Unlike previous studies, we found that the installed capacity of wind energy cannot be well predicted by wind potential, land area and population density in an area. In the Czech Republic, wind farms more likely have been implemented in more urbanised, environmentally deprived coal-mining areas that are affected by economic depression. It seems that in environmentally deprived areas, wind energy is more positively accepted as an alternative source to coal, and the economic motivation (financial benefits for municipalities) can have a greater effect on local acceptance, while public opposition is less efficient due to lower social capital and involvement in political matters. Based on these results, some implications for the planning and spatial targeting of new wind farms are discussed.

This communication concerns the prestigious award - the Karel Engliš Honorary Medal for Merit in the Social and Economic Sciences - that Bryn Greer-Wootten, Professor Emeritus at York University in Toronto and the Editor-in-Chief of the Moravian Geographical Reports (MGR), received from the Czech Academy of Sciences in2018. The article contains the most important and interesting points from the Laudation by Professor Radim Blaheta (Chair of the Institute of Geonics’ Institutional Board and the previous Director of the Institute), the Response by Professor Greer-Wootten, and the Closing Speech by Bohumil Frantál (Executive Editor of MGR), which were presented during the award ceremony on August 28, 2018 at the historic Löw-Beer Villa in Brno, Czech Republic.

Using a case study of the Búrfell wind farm project, a large wind farm proposed in the Central Highlands of Iceland, the authors attempt to provide new insights into the factors shaping subjective landscape perceptions and attitudes to renewable energy developments, and into alternative methods that may be used for their assessment. The research was based on an on-site visit and actual experience of the place, investigated using a combination of mental mapping, the technique of the semantic differential and a questionnaire survey. The results show that participants visiting a landscape and using all sensory organs in combination with mental mapping, can reveal more important information than using only ‘laboratory’ methods with static photographs. The results suggest that the perception of landscape is highly subjective. Those perceiving the landscape as more open, homogenous, industrial, unfamiliar and resilient also consider it more compatible with wind turbines. The perception of the landscape’s compatibility with wind turbines proved to be a dominant factor shaping attitudes towards the project. The acceptance of wind turbines is not, however, inconsistent with the perception of landscape as beautiful, wild and unique. Participants from more densely populated countries and countries with a developed wind energy industry were more tolerant of wind turbines in the Icelandic landscape.

In the article, which is a theoretical and conceptual introduction for the Special Issue of Moravian Geographical Reports on ‘New trends and challenges of urban agriculture in the context of Europe’, the authors resume and review diverging issues of urban agriculture, exploring and discussing them from a geographical perspective and in a wider context of the transformation of urban and rural spaces, urban regeneration and renewal, agricultural restructuring, multifunctionality, ecosystem services, land-use conflicts and social responsibility. After the introduction that depicts a changing role of agriculture in the context of urban and rural transformations, the current research on urban agriculture in Europe is summarised and reviewed. Then the main trends and concepts of growing and expanding urban agriculture are presented and discussed with a special emphasis on the challenges these pose to geographers.

The effect of geographical distance on the extent of socioeconomic impacts of the Dukovany nuclear power plant in the Czech Republic is assessed by combining two different research approaches. First, we survey how people living in municipalities in the vicinity of the power plant perceive impacts on their personal quality of life. Second, we explore the effects of the power plant on regional development by analysing long-term statistical data about the unemployment rate, the share of workers in the energy sector and overall job opportunities in the respective municipalities. The results indicate that the power plant has had significant positive impacts on surrounding communities both as perceived by residents and as evidenced by the statistical data. The level of impacts is, however, significantly influenced by the spatial and social distances of communities and individuals from the power plant. The perception of positive impacts correlates with geographical proximity to the power plant, while the hypothetical distance where positive effects on the quality of life are no longer perceived was estimated at about 15 km. Positive effects are also more likely to be reported by highly educated, young and middle-aged and economically active persons, whose work is connected to the power plant.

Focusing on coal energy from a geographical perspective, the unintended regional consequences of coal mining and combustion in the Czech Republic are discussed and analysed in terms of the environmental injustice and resource curse theories. The explorative case study attempts to identify significant associations between the spatially uneven distribution of coal power plants and the environmental and socioeconomic characteristics and development trends of affected areas. The findings indicate that the coal industries have contributed to slightly above average incomes and pensions, and have provided households with some technical services such as district heating. However, these positive effects have come at high environmental and health costs paid by the local populations. Above average rates of unemployment, homelessness and crime indicate that the benefits have been unevenly distributed economically. A higher proportion of uneducated people and ethnic minorities in affected districts suggest that coal energy is environmentally unjust.

Článek se snaží odpovědět na otázku, které lokalizační a specifické faktory mají rozhodující vliv na úspěšnou regeneraci brownfields. S využitím dat za Jihomoravský kraj, autoři analyzují prostorovou a funkční distribuci brownfields, testují souvislost mezi rozvojovým potenciálem obcí a rozmístěním již regenerovaných brownfields a porovnávají strukturu a charakteristiky existujících a regenerovaných brownfields, aby identifikovali signifikantní katalyzátory a bariéry procesu regenerace. Výsledky ukazují, že regenerované brownfields se mnohem častěji nachází v obcích s vyšším rozvojovým potenciálem, který je reprezentován zejména mírou lokální podnikatelské aktivity, periférností (blízkostí k regionálními centru a napojením na hlavní silniční síť) a kvalitou lokální infrastruktury. Také se potvrdilo, že velikost brownfileds, jejich předchozí industriální využití a existence kontaminace nepředstavují rozhodující bariéry, pokud se nachází v atraktivní lokalitě a nemají komplikované vlastnické vztahy

With immensely growing pressure on land and its scarcity, conflicting societal expectations concerning land use increasingly result in land use conflicts (LUCs). In this paper, we explore local LUCs, which we define as the complex situations, where fragmented planning policies encounter place-based societal conceptions and perceptions of site-specific developmental priorities. The paper adopts a dynamic approach and introduces a theory-driven typology of potentially conflicting planning decisions. The typology is employed as an analytic framework to reveal the open-ended successive planning decisions that lead to complex local LUCs. Two case studies from Central Europe are explored to narrate the evolutionary complexity of LUCs. Our results show that local LUCs emerged as the past planning decisions lined-up into a sequence creating lock-in situations, where different planning policies can be hardly reconciled. Finally, we discuss applicability, transferability and limits of the proposed typology as an analytic framework advancing management of planning conflicts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]