SLOVENIA AS A EUROPEAN LANDSCAPE HOTSPOT

Abstract

In the first part of the analysis we tried to define places in Europe with higher diversity according to different natural landscape types or landscape regions. In order to get such “hotspots” four geographical classifications of Europe were analyzed (Environmental stratification of Europe [21]; European landscape classification [24]; Biogeographical regions [3]; Terrestrial ecoregions of the World [26]). At first maps of variety of landscapes were defined based on each classification that we took into account. This step was done by calculating a number of different unique natural landscape types or regions in radius of 50 km for each cell. Each map of variety of landscapes was then weighted (cell values were divided by a number of all unique types or regions in a division). At the final stage of this part all the maps were synthesized (averaged) into one map showing landscape diversity for the Europe. After that step we defined Europe's landscape hotspots and pointed out the most naturally heterogeneous countries. We found that among all of the European countries, Slovenia has the highest average landscape diversity. Such result gives the country some advantages in the field of tourism based on the natural values of landscape. One of the benefits of having high landscape diversity is making it possible to advertise Slovenia as a tourist destination, offering a "pan-European experience."

Keywords

• landscapes
• landscape diversity
• regional geography
• slovenia
• europe