Forum geografic. Studii și cercetări de geografie și protecția mediului Volume XVI, Issue 2 (December 2017), pp. 126-131 (6) http://dx.doi.org/10.5775/fg.2017.023.d A web-map of the landscapes of Vitosha Mountain and the development of landscape science in Bulgaria Jordan TZVETKOV1,* 1 Space Research and Technology Institute, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia 1113, Akad. Georgy Bonchev St., Bl.1 * Corresponding author: [email protected] Received on 05-01-2017, reviewed on 25-03-2017, accepted on 30-03-2017 Abstract Rezumat. O hartă web a peisajelor Muntelui Vitosha și dezvoltarea științei peisajului în On the first hand, the purpose of this article is to present the map and classification of the landscapes of Vitosha Mountain. On the Bulgaria other hand, it aims to present this map as an example and În primul rând, scopul articolului este acela de a prezenta illustration in the context of traditionally applied approaches in clasificarea peisajelor și harta acestora la nivelul Muntelui Vitosha. Bulgaria in defining the landscape, as well as in researching and Pe de altă parte, lucrarea furnizează harta ca exem-plu și ilustrare classifying the landscapes. There is also a brief overview of the în contextul abordărilor tradiționale utilizate în Bulgaria cu privire development of land-scape science in Bulgaria. la definirea peisajului, precum și în cercetarea și clasificarea The choice of the territory in study relates to the fact that Vitosha peisajelor. În articol se realizează și o succintă prezentare a Mountain is a protected area, i.e. a Nature park declared in 1934, dezvoltării științei peisajului în Bulgaria. now part of the NATURA 2000 network. Alegerea arealului de studiu este legată de faptul că Muntele The Vitosha Landscape Map is developed by using GIS tools and Vitosha reprezintă o arie protejată, fiind declarat Parc natural în it is implemented as a web-map, which makes it much easier to 1934, iar în prezent este parte a rețelei Natura 2000. access, examine and work with it, as com-pared to static maps. Harta peisajelor Muntelui Vitosha este realizată prin utiliz-area Keywords: Vitosha Mountain, landscapes, GIS, web-mapping instrumentelor GIS și este implementată ca o hartă web, ceea ce ușurează mult accesul, examinarea și lucrul cu aceasta, în comparație cu hărțile statice. Cuvinte-cheie: Muntele Vitosha, peisaje, SIG, web-mapping scapes (or primary landscape structure) and second one being that of the anthropogenic landscape Introduction chang-es (or secondary landscape structure). All attributes of the layers are bilingually expressed (in In the context of the European Landscape Bulgarian and English), which, in combination with Conven-tion – ELC (ratified in 2004 by the Bulgarian the easy ac-cess to the web-map, makes it suitable to Parlia-ment) it is crucial to increase cooperation in present some of the landscape concepts used in landscape science between all European countries, Bulgaria to a broader scientific audience. because ELC emphasizes that landscape “identification and as-sessment procedures shall be A short history of the landscape science in guided by the exchang-es of experience and Bulgaria methodology, organised be-tween the Parties at European level”. Landscape sci-ence in Bulgaria has a The development of the landscape science in Bul- long tradition. It covers nu-merous branches like garia started in the first half of the 20th century in the landscape mapping, landscape evaluation, landscape Sofia University, with the names of Prof. Jeko Radev geochemistry etc. Unfortunate-ly, as most of the and Prof. Dimitar Yaranov, who first used the term publications in this field are issued in Bulgarian “landscape” in their scientific works. In 1934, Prof. language, they are not well known to the Ivan Batakliev published “Landscape differentiation of international scientific community in the area of land- Bulgaria”, the first scientific paper dedicated scape science and landscape ecology. In an attempt especially to landscape science issues. In 1943, Ignat to fill this gap, in the present article we will present a Penkov published a broad study with the title “Cultural short introduction to the development of landscape land-scapes”. Most of them follow the German science in Bulgaria. Then, we will introduce a web- tradition in landscape science. After the WWII, D. map of the landscapes in Vitosha Mountain (South- Yaranov and I. Batakliev were dismissed from the West Bulgaria), as an example of this tradition. This Sofia University and the development of landscape web-map application is made by using free GIS tools science was dis-continued for nearly 25 years. In in QGIS Cloud service. It contains two separate lay- 1970, I. Ivanov, D. Dimitrov and P. Penchev argued ers, the first one being that of the potential land- the necessity of Bul-garian physical geography to turn 126 Forum geografic. Studii și cercetări de geografie și protecția mediului Volume XVI, Issue 2 (December 2017), pp. 126-131 http://dx.doi.org/10.5775/fg.2017.023.d again to the study of landscape problems. In 1972, To the end of the eighties, landscape science in the Department of Landscape Science (now Bulgaria (Petrov, 1990) was strongly influenced by the Landscape Science and Envi-ronmental Protection) scientific traditions and concepts established in the was established in the Faculty of Geology and former Soviet Union and in other Eastern and Central Geography of the Sofia University. Until the end of the Europe countries. Afterwards, broader scientific con- eighties, many young geogra-phers were trained in cepts, theories and methods from the field of land- the field of landscape science in the former Soviet scape ecology started to penetrate the Bulgarian Union, where they acquired Ph.D. For several landscape science. The contemporary challenge of decades, hundreds of scientific publica-tions were Bulgarian landscape science is to apply these con- issued, covering almost all branches in the field of cepts developed in different scientific schools, pre- landscape science, such as landscape classifi-cation serving the best of the old tradition and accepting all and landscape mapping, landscape geophysics, the best from the landscape ecology. landscape geochemistry, and landscape evaluation (Velchev et al., 2011). Table 1 Comparison of the two basic landscape classifications in Bulgaria Petrov, 1979 Velchev et al., 1992 Landscape Taxonomic Taxonomic level Criteria Criteria unit unit Level 1 Class Physical conditions of the surface Class Relief and its geologic content – territory or water surface. (plains or mountains). Macro-geomorphologic features, determining the character of zo- nation (plains or mountains). Level 2 Type Typical features of zonation; veg- Type Hydroclimatic conditions; vegeta- etation and soil type. tion types and their relation with cli- mate conditions. Level 3 Subtype Features of zonation inside the Subtype Secondary features of zonation and type; vegetation and soil subtype. bioclimatic conditions. Level 4 Group Geologic and geomorphologic Genus Relief type and geological struc- features – mesorelief; base rock tures; vegetation and soil. formation (parent material); phy- tocoenosis and soil. Level 5 Species The most relative homogeneity of Species Geologic and geomorphologic ho- the environmental features. mogeneity; soil-vegetation cover; microclimate conditions. water masses, soils, vegetation cover, animals, The view of landscape and the land-scape human activity reshaping the natural environment classifications in Bulgaria (Petrov, 1990; Velchev et al., 2011). The view of landscape in Bulgarian science is On the national level, there are two basic land- mainly based on the works of the Russian scientists scape classifications accompanied by landscape maps and geographers like V. V. Dokuchaev, L. S. Berg, A. for Bulgaria. The first one is based on N. A. A. Grigoriev, S. V. Kalesnik, N. A. Solntsev, A. G. Isa- Gvozdetskii’s landscape classification and it was ac- chenko, N. A. Gvozdetskii, F. N. Milkov, D. L. Armand, companied by a landscape map at scale 1:400,000 V. A. Nikolaev, and V. B. Sochava. In this context, a (Petrov, 1979). The second one is based on N. L. common definition of landscape accepts that it is “a Berouchashvili’s landscape classification and it was natural formation in exact stage and operating in time accompanied by a landscape map at scale 1:500,000 and space within the environmental system; it holds (Velchev et al., 1992). Table 1 displays the taxonomic some natural resources and it is affected more or less units and the differentiation criteria. by the human activity” (Velchev et al., 2011). In con- Besides these two basic classifications, several trast with one of the broad accepted views in land- dozens of variants and modified versions of them, as scape ecology, where “a landscape is an area that is well as a few generally different landscape classifica- spatially heterogeneous in at least one factor of inter- tions were used for landscape mapping only for a part est” (Turner et al., 2001), this perspective postulates of the country and they were not applied at national a more holistic approach, i.e. landscape is only a spa- level. tial whole consisting of all environmental components: rocks and geologic structures, geomorphologic fea-tures, air masses and its climate, 127 A web-map of the landscapes of Vitosha Mountain and the development of landscape science in Bulgaria Short description of the study area Level four (Group) with differentiation criteria: Vitosha Mountain is located in South-West Bulgar- topological features of the relief. ia, near the capital Sofia. Its total area is 27,485 ha • Ridges with denudation and slopes under 4 and the highest peak is Cherni Vrah (Black Peak), with degrees 2,290 m a.s.l. The mean altitude of the mountain is • Slopes with erosion and denudation nearly 1,400 m a.s.l. The mountain is the first Bul- • Slopes with erosion, denudation and karst garian National Park and the first in the Balkan Penin- • Hydromorphic and sub-hydromorphic with sula, being declared in 1934.