CAPACities 5 BELA KRAJINA – SUSTAINABILITY IN A KARST LANDSCAPE Daniela Ribeiro 2 CAPACities 5 BELA KRAJINA – SUSTAINABILITY IN A KARST LANDSCAPE Daniela Ribeiro 4 CAPACities 5 BELA KRAJINA – SUSTAINABILITY IN A KARST LANDSCAPE Daniela Ribeiro LjubLjAnA 2020 Knjižna zbirka CAPACities, ISSN 2232-2477, UDK 91 CAPACities 5 BELA KRAJINA – SUSTAINABILITY IN A KARST LANDSCAPE Daniela Ribeiro © 2020, ZRC SAZU, Geografski inštitut Antona Melika, Založba ZRC Editors: Nika Razpotnik Viskovic, Mateja Šmid Hribar Series Editors: Janez Nared, Drago Perko Reviewers: Andraž Carni, Matija Zorn Cartographers: Daniela Ribeiro, Manca Volk Bahun Photographers: Daniela Ribeiro, Jure Ticar Translation of abstract: Živa Malovrh Translation of preface: Deks d.o.o. Proofreading: Alexander Jordan Issued by: ZRC SAZU, Geografski inštitut Antona Melika For the issuer: Matija Zorn Published by: Založba ZRC For the publisher: Oto Luthar Editor-in-chief: Aleš Pogacnik Cover design: Jerneja Fridl Cover photographies: Daniela Ribeiro DTP: SYNCOMP d.o.o., Ljubljana Printed by: Collegium Graphicum Print run: 250 copies First edition, first printing. First e-edition of the book is published under terms of Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.: DOI: https://doi.org/10.3986/9789610504627 The CAPACities book series is being produced as a part of the research program, Geography of Slovenia (P6-0101), funded by the Slovenian Research Agency. The research is also a result of a postdoctoral project (Z7-1885) also funded by the Slovenian Research Agency. CIP – Kataložni zapis o publikacijiNarodna in univerzitetna knjižnica, Ljubljana 911.2:551.44(497.4Bela krajina) 711.14(497.4Bela krajina)502.131.1(497.4Bela krajina) RIBEIRO, Daniela Bela krajina – sustainability in a karst landscape / Daniela Ribeiro ; [cartographers Daniela Ribeiro, Manca Volk Bahun ; photographers Daniela Ribeiro, Jure Ticar ;translation of abstract Živa Malovrh, translation of preface Deks]. – 1st ed., 1st printing. –Ljubljana : Založba ZRC, 2020. – (Knjižna zbirka Capacities, ISSN 2232-2477 ; 5) ISBN 978-961-05-0461-0 COBISS.SI-ID 22518787 COBISS.SI -ID= 22523907 ISBN 978-961-05-0462-7 (pdf) CAPACities 5 BELA KRAJINA – SUSTAINABILITY IN A KARST LANDSCAPE Daniela Ribeiro uDC: 913:551.44(497.434bela krajina) 711.14(497.434bela krajina) 502.131.1(497.434bela krajina) CObISS: 2.01 AbSTRACT Bela krajina – Sustainability in a karst landscape Sustainable development in karst areas should be adapted to its specificities and take into account its vulnerability. Since the assessment of the development potential and management of karst areas is of greatimportanceinSlovenia,theauthoranalysedtheimpactoflandscapefeaturesonthelanduseand sustainable development in bela krajina, as a study region. The monograph is divided into three main parts,essentiallybasedontheapproachesusedtoanalysetheselectedkarstlandscape.Firstly,anassess­ment of the degree of human disturbance to the karstenvironment in bela krajina was done, using an environmental index specific for karst areas, referred to as the ‘Karst Disturbance Index’. The Karst Disturbance Index classified the degree of disturbance in bela krajina as low. In the second part, two case studies were selected (the settlements of Adlešici and bojanci) for an in-depth study of landscape changes,throughlandusechanges,overtheprevious200years.Theresultsoftheseanalysesconfirmed the land abandonment and overgrowth of agricultural land in both case studies, however at different rates.Socio-economicaspectswerefoundtobethemostimportantdriversoflandusechangesinthese case studies. In the third part, quantitative analysis (through the use of sustainable development indi­cators)andqualitativeanalysis(throughstructuredinterviews)ofthelandscapefeaturesforsustainable development was performed. by means of a comparative approach the reasons for the differences in landscapestructureanddevelopmentinbelakrajinawerediscussed.Accordingtothequantitativeanalysis, Semic is the most sustainably developed municipality, whilst Crnomelj was identified as the least sus­tainably developed municipality in the study region. The results from qualitative analysis of landscape features using interviews didn’t show many differences among the municipalities. However, some dif­ferencesamongdifferentstakeholderswereperceived.Thewaysinwhichthekarstlandscapeinfluences localdevelopmentmentionedbylocalstakeholderswerethat:ithampersagriculture,hampersthebuild­ing of houses and other infrastructure, and it is vulnerable to pollution. Karst landscape features affect sustainabledevelopmentpositivelyandnegatively,accordingtolocalstakeholders.Thepositiveeffects were mainly connected with tourism, and the negative effects were mainly connected with hampered agriculture. Thus karst landscape features cannot only be seen as limiting factors, but also as having their own development potential. KEY WORDS karst landscapes, sustainable development, land use, bela krajina, Slovenia CAPACities 5 BELA KRAJINA – TRAJNOST V KRAŠKI POKRAJINI Daniela Ribeiro uDK: 913:551.44(497.434bela krajina) 711.14(497.434bela krajina) 502.131.1(497.434bela krajina) CObISS: 2.01 IZVLECEK Trajnostnirazvojnakraškihobmocjihbimoralbitiprilagojenposebnostimtepokrajine,posebejnjeni ranljivosti. Ker je pravilno vrednotenje razvojnega potenciala in upravljanje s kraškimi obmocji zelo pomembnozaSlovenijo,smonaprimerubelekrajineanaliziralivplivpokrajinskihprvinnarabozem­ljišc in trajnostni razvoj. Raziskava je razdeljena na tri sklope, ki hkrati predstavljajo tri pristope k preucevanju pokrajine. najprej smo s posebnim indeksom za kraške pokrajine ocenili stopnjo clo­vekovega vpliva na kraško pokrajino (indeks obremenjenosti kraškega okolja zaradi vpliva cloveka). na njegovi podlagi smo belo krajino opredelili kot nekoliko cloveško obremenjeno, zato smo ocenili, da je raven obremenjenosti v beli krajini nizka. V drugem sklopu smo preucili dve študiji primerov (naselji Adlešici in bojanci), kjer smo podrobno analizirali pokrajinske spremembe s poudarkom na rabitalvzadnjihdvehstoletjih.Rezultatisopotrdiliopušcanjeobdelovalnihzemljišcinzarašcanjepokra­jine. na preucevanih primerih se je pokazalo, da so najpomembnejša gonila sprememb rabe zemljišc družbeno-gospodarskivzroki.Vtretjemsklopusmoopravilikvantitativno(zuporabokazalnikovtraj­nostnegarazvoja)inkvalitativnoanalizo(sstrukturiranimiintervjuji)pokrajinskihprvinzatrajnostni razvoj. S primerjalnim pristopom smo razpravljali o razlogih za razlike v pokrajinski strukturi in raz­voju bele krajine. Rezultati kvantitativne analize kažejo, da je Semic najbolj trajnostno razvita obcina, medtemkojebilCrnomeljopredeljenkotnajmanjtrajnostnorazvitaobcina.Rezultatikvalitativneana­lize pokrajinskih prvin niso pokazali vecjih razlik med obcinami, a smo zaznali dolocene razlike med razlicnimi skupinami deležnikov. nacini, kako kraškost vpliva na lokalni razvoj so: zaviranje kmetij­stva,zaviranjegradnjehišininfrastruktureterranljivostnaonesnaževanje.Lokalnideležnikisoizpostavili, dakraškipojavinatrajnostnirazvojlahkovplivajopozitivnoalinegativno.Pozitivnisovecinomapove­zani s turizmom, negativni pa s kmetijstvom. Delo sklenemo s pozitivno ugotovitvijo, da kraškost ni le omejitveni dejavnik, temvec ima tudi razvojni potencial. KLjuCnE bESEDE kraške pokrajine, trajnosti razvoj, raba zemljišc, bela krajina, Slovenija CONTENT Preface ..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................11 1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................................................................................................13 2 Theoretical background and methodology ............................................................................................................................14 2.1 Theoretical background ............................................................................................................................................................14 2.1.1 Approaches for measuring sustainable development..............................................................................16 2.1.1.1 Worldwide ..........................................................................................................................................................16 2.1.1.2 In Slovenia ..........................................................................................................................................................19 2.1.2 Landscapes as pivotal areas for sustainable management....................................................................23 2.1.3 Policies vs. land use and development ..............................................................................................................25 2.1.4 Public participation ........................................................................................................................................................26 2.1.5 Karst features and sustainable development..................................................................................................27 2.2 Methodology ......................................................................................................................................................................................28 2.2.1 Karst Disturbance Index ..............................................................................................................................................30 2.2.2 Land use analyses ..............................................................................................................................................................34 2.2.3 Quantitative and qualitative analyses of the landscape features ....................................................40 2.2.3.1 Sustainable development indicators ................................................................................................40 2.2.3.2 Structured interviews ..................................................................................................................................42 3 Results ........................................................................................................................................................................................................................44 3.1 Karst Disturbance Index ............................................................................................................................................................44 3.2 Land use analyses: Adlešici and bojanci case studies ..........................................................................................63 3.2.1 Land use changes ..............................................................................................................................................................63 3.2.2 Landscape stability ..........................................................................................................................................................69 3.2.3 Land use categories over time ..................................................................................................................................69 3.3 Quantitative and qualitative analyses of the landscape features ..................................................................74 3.3.1 Sustainable development indicators ....................................................................................................................74 3.3.1.1 Selection ..............................................................................................................................................................74 3.3.1.2 Measuring sustainable development ................................................................................................80 3.3.1.3 Model matrix ....................................................................................................................................................85 3.3.1.4 Scenarios for bela krajina ........................................................................................................................86 3.3.2 Structured interviews ....................................................................................................................................................87 3.3.2.1 Analysis of the answers ..............................................................................................................................87 3.3.2.2 General responses ......................................................................................................................................113 3.3.3 Comparison of the results ........................................................................................................................................115 4 Discussion and conclusions ............................................................................................................................................................115 4.1 Comments and limitations....................................................................................................................................................120 4.2 Karst and sustainability............................................................................................................................................................121 4.3 Key methodological achievements ..................................................................................................................................122 4.4 Recommendations ....................................................................................................................................................................123 4.5 Suggested areas for future study ........................................................................................................................................125 5 References and Sources ......................................................................................................................................................................126 5.1 References ..........................................................................................................................................................................................126 5.2 Sources of qualitative data (interviews) ......................................................................................................................135 6 List of figures..............................................................................................................................................................................................136 7 List of tables ................................................................................................................................................................................................138 10 PREfACE Duringthesetimesofacceleratedandomnipresentglobalisation,regionalisationprocessesorregion­al development concepts are also gaining strength as expected counterweights. These concepts derive fromthemodernversionsofendogenouslandscapedevelopmentpotentialsofgreatersustainableimpor­tance.Duetovariouspotentialsandlimitationsintermsofnaturalgeography,ecosystems,socialgeography, economy,infrastructure,andotheraspects,landscapesinwhichacertainlandscapefeatureheavilydeter­mines the sustainable development and its ‘survival’ potential, find themselves in a special situation from the perspective of sustainable development. The author selected bela krajina, a geographically marginal Slovenian karst landscape, as a sample model region for an empirical analysis of sustainable karstlandscapecapacities.Sherightlyposedthekeyresearchquestion:Canspecific,endogenouslyimpor­tantlandscapefeatures,andtheirowndevelopmentalandprotectivepotentialsorlimitations,playakey positive or negative role in establishing sustainable regional development of the predominantly karst regionofbelakrajinaanditsgeographicalareas?Inevaluatingthedevelopmentalandprotectiveoppor­tunitiesinshallow-orlow-karstlandscapes,suchasbelakrajina,itneedstobeadditionallyunderlined that this type of karst landscape is exceptionally sensitive in terms of water ecology and vulnerable to humanactivity.Inaddition,itshouldbehighlightedthatduetoitsmodestnaturalresources,dispersed settlements, geographical remoteness from major centres, poorly developed infrastructure, and com­paratively low level of education, the marginal border region of bela krajina has not experienced any accelerated regional development even after Slovenia’s independence. Throughdetailedstudiesofbelakrajina,includingfieldresearch,inwhichsheusedvariousmethod­ologicalapproachesatvariousterritoriallevelsoftheselectedlandscape,theauthorconvincinglyexplored the impact of key landscape features on land use and (un)sustainable regional development of karst landscapes. Initially, she innovatively modified and improved the index of human disturbance to karst landscapesinthepilotareascomprisingthebelakrajinamunicipalitiesofCrnomelj,Metlika,andSemic. Inordertodeterminethehistoricallychangingrolesoflandscapefeatures(especiallykarstones),changes in land use over the past two hundred years were analysed in detail in the settlements of Adlešici and bojanci.TheanalysisoflandusechangesandtrendsfromtheperiodoftheFranciscanCadasteronwards was complemented with detailed field mapping, which confirmed gradual abandonment of intensive agriculturallanduse,withhighlyacceleratedovergrowingandafforestationofselectedkarstgeographical areas around Adlešici and bojanci. The author established that a slight positive expansion of gardens could be observed in 2012, which most likely already indicates the desired orientation to greater self-sufficiency in food. Special attention should be paid to the important research finding that the abandonment of culti­vated land was fundamentally influenced by socioeconomic conditions (especially changes in the populationandopportunitiestofindemploymentoutsideoffarming)andnaturalkarstlandscapefac-tors, whereas cultural and ethnographic factors (e.g., a different ethnic composition of the residents of bojanci) were of secondary or marginal importance. basedonasetofselectedquantitativeindicatorsofsustainabledevelopmentandappropriatequal-itativeinterpretationofstructuredinterviewsconductedwithkeystakeholdergroups(i.e.,farmers,resident non-farmers, professionals of nature protection, tourism professionals, and local government repre­sentatives), an original quantitative and qualitative evaluation of landscape features was performed at regionalandmunicipallevels(Crnomelj,Metlika,andSemic).Thestatisticaldeficiencyoftherelatively small number of interviews conducted (i.e., thirty-two) is partially ameliorated by the representative selectionoftherespondents,althoughtheresultsofthesyntheticquantitativeevaluationaresomewhat surprising. Specifically, the quantitative measurements showed that the Municipality of Semic was the mostsustainablydevelopedmunicipalityinbelakrajina,whereastheMunicipalityofCrnomeljturned out to be the least sustainably developed. Theresultsofthequalitativeanalysisoflandscapefeaturesusingstructuredinterviewsdidnotshow anysignificantdifferencesbetweenthemunicipalities,butcertaindifferenceswereestablishedbetween the answers of various stakeholder groups. Thus, most farmers considered the karst character of the landscape to be an exceptionally important landscape features due to its negative impact on land use selection; a more pronounced karst character of the surface makes farming more expensive and more difficult. Furthermore, due to the rocky karst surface and shallow soil, farming yields are smaller, irri­gation potential is modest, and the sensitivity of water ecology to agricultural pollution is substantial, including increased exposure to fires. Attention should also be drawn to the increasing view among tourismemployeesthatbelakrajina’skarstcharacterandcertainattractivekarstfeaturesaretouristattrac­tions,representingthepotentialforthedevelopmentoftourismbothcurrentlyand,increasinglyinthe future. The author’s concern over the lack of communication and distrust among various local stake­holders is well-founded in this regard. The author explicitly underlines thatland use and the overall sustainable regional development in karst areas must be adapted to the specific karst features at the regional, municipal, and micro-local levels, which particularly applies to the exceptional water-ecology vulnerability of shallow karst areas. Thedevelopmentoffarmingandtourismbasedoneffectiveandsustainableapproachesadaptedtokarst features is key for the sustainable regional development of bela krajina. However, the author argues that its economy cannot be built on tourism and natural beauty, or farming alone. Hence, the estab­lishment and development of small enterprises is extremely important for the region’s development, and an environmentally friendly modernisation of the road to novo mesto (including a road tunnel through the Gorjanci Mountains) is also vital for entrepreneurship, tourism, and commuting. Due to karst features and minimal impacts on vulnerable karst water sources, both organic farm-ingandeco-tourismarepotentiallyhighlydesirableandatthesametimefeasibleintheregion.Therefore, the author suggests that an additional set of indicators that specifically assess the limitations or devel­opmentalpotentialofkarstfeaturesforlanduseandsustainablelocalandregionaldevelopmentbeused for a comprehensive developmental and protective evaluation of the development potential and man­agement of karst regions. In terms of contribution to research methodology, the author’s innovative proposal for modifying the overall index of human disturbance to the karst environment (with a total ofeighteenkarstlandscapeindicators)isworthyofspecialmention,includinghersuggestiontoslight­ly adapt certain indicators (e.g., environmental impact indicators) to the specific features of the karst area studied. Intermsofbelakrajina’sdevelopment,karstfeaturesarebothanadvantageandalimitationtodevel­opmentandsettlement,whichdependonits(un)sustainableorientationandontheadaptabilityofland use and the economy to its karst character. dr. Dušan Plut 1 Intr ducti n Understanding the relationship between natural and human factors that have shaped landscapes is crucial for understanding sustainability. This is even more important when discussing karst land­scapes, considering the vulnerability of karst systems. Karst landscapes are particularly vulnerable to overuse and misuse due to the nature of the karst hydrological system, and once ‘damaged’ can be extreme­ly difficult to ‘repair’. Recognising this problem, the European Union has made efforts to protect the quality and quantity of groundwater resources (Vulnerability and Risk…2003); the IUCN has also for­mulated guidelines for the protection of caves and karst (Watson et al.1997), and for sustainable tourism in protected areas (Eagles, McCool and Haynes 2002). Karst landscapes in Slovenia cover approximately 8800km2or over 44% of the country’s area. Karst landscapes are characterised by stony surfaces with dolines, collapse dolines, solution valleys, poljes, corrosion plains,anddry and blind valleys (Gams 2003).Accordingtothegeological,hydrological and morphological conditions, the Slovenian karst can be divided into: the Alpine karst, the Dinaric karst and isolated karst (Habic 1969; Gams 2003). The Dinaric karst is the largest karst area in Slovenia, representing around two thirds of the whole karst area in the country (Gams 2003); with Bela krajina as our study region being part of it. Bela kra­jina is located in the south-eastern part of Slovenia, along the Slovenian-Croatian border, covering 595km2. The use of space, patterning and economic structure are influenced by the interlacing karst and Pannonian geographical characteristics (Plut 2008). Landscape features and scenic vistas are common across the region. However, due to modestnatural resources, dispersed settlements, geographic distance from larg­er urban centres, badly developed infrastructure and relatively low education levels, there is a lack of even regional development (Plut 2008). The selection of karst landscapes for this study was driven by its environmental sensitivity and vul­nerability, recognisable important features at a national level, cultural and symbolic landscape identity, and natural characteristics with distinctive features limiting and directing human activities. Various stud­ies have pointed out that the karstification of Slovenian landscapes is a distinct limiting factor for agriculture (e.g., Gams, Lovrencak and Ingolic 1971; Kladnik and Senegacnik 1983; Kladnik 1998; Cunder 2001; Ciglic et al. 2012). Ciglic et al. (2012) identified the following limiting factors as a result of karstifica­tion: 1) terrain features: fine terrain dissection, primarily with dolines and similar corrosion features; 2) lack of surface water due to rapid drainage of water through porous karst rock, increasing the fre­quency of droughts and fire hazards; 3) discontinuous, rocky, shallow, loamy soil, of uneven depth and with frequent protruding rocky outcrops and rare deeper pockets; and, 4) small plots of agricultural land that hamper mechanical cultivation and the adaption of the land use structure to modern agriculture. With this research we aim to identify and study the influence of landscape features on the sustainable development of Bela krajina, where karst landscapes prevail. In order to better understand the influ­ence of landscape features on land use and the sustainable development of Bela krajina, an assessment of the disturbance of Bela krajina’s karst landscapes was done first, followed by the analyses of land use changes and an examination of regional sustainable development. This monograph is composed of seven chapters. The following chapter (chapter 2), presents a theo­retical background with a review of the literature on sustainable development, common approaches to measuring sustainable development, the role of landscape in sustainable development, effects of policies in land use and development, the importance of public participation in sustainable development, and the relationship between karst features and sustainable development. The methodological framework is also included in chapter 2, describing data collection and preparation, and the methods utilised. Chapter 3 describes the results obtained from different approaches of the study of the karst landscape. Chapter 4 presents discussions and conclusions, providing a proposed set of indicators to measure the sustainable development of karst regions, as well as suggestions for further research. Chapter 5 contains a reference section, which is followed by a list of figures in chapter 6, and finally a list of tables in chapter 7. 2 Theoretical background and methodology 2.1 Theoretical background Our sustainable future is threatened by increasing pressures on natural resources as well as on the natural and cultural assets of the landscape, as a result of the vicious circle of population growth and consumption (Naveh 2001). In the current cultural evolutionary trends, the only options are between thefurtherevolutionofsuitableliving,oritsfurtherexponentialdegradationtowardsextinction(Laszlo 1994). Therefore, sustainability and/or sustainable development is not a choice but rather a necessity, as claimed by Wu (2013). In 1713, Hans Carl von Carlowitz published the book Silvicultura oeconomica, which encouraged the conservation, growth and use of wood in a continuing, stable and sustained manner (Schmithüsen 2013). This was probably the first time that the idea of sustainability was used; it was at least the first time that the term sustainability (in German, Nachhaltigkeit) was documented, and thus the concept ofsustainabilitywasincorporatedinforestrymanagement. Forthelastfourdecades,sustainabilityhas been under the spotlight of scholars and politicians, however, as pointed out by Forman (1995) a truly sustainable condition may be impossible, therefore it is better to consider sustainability as a direction or trajectory. Along the same line of thought, Munro (1995, 34) claimed that sustainability »is a con­tinuous or iterative process, through and throughout which experience in managing complex systems is accumulated, assessed, and applied«. Theterm‘sustainabledevelopment’ isverypopular,aswellasbeingvagueandambiguous(Kazana andKazaklis2009).ItwasfirstpromotedbytheInternationalUnionforConservationofNature(IUCN), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), through thepublicationoftheWorldConservationStrategyin1980(1980;hereinafter,theStrategy).TheStrategy refers to the sustainable utilisation of natural resources and indicates the main requirements for sus­tainabledevelopment.ItwaspopularisedbyOurCommonFuture,thereportoftheWorldCommission on Environment and Development (WCED), also titled the Brundtland report, after its chairman Gro Harlem Brundtland (Our Common Future 1987). The Brundtland report defined sustainable devel­opment as »development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generationstomeettheirownneeds« (OurCommonFuture1987,41).Thisreportalsoassertsthat»eco­nomics and ecology must be completely integrated in decision making and law making processes not just to protect the environment, but also to protect and promote development« (Our Common Future 1987, 36).Theconceptofsustainabledevelopmenthasbeenfurtherelaboratedonintwomajorinternational documents, the successor to the World Conservation Strategy, Caring for the Earth: A Strategy for SustainableLiving(Caringfortheearth…1991),andinAgenda21(EarthSummit…1992),theaction planadoptedbytheUnitedNationsConferenceonEnvironmentandDevelopmentheldinRiodeJaneiro in 1992. AsthedefinitionofsustainabledevelopmentgivenbyWCED(OurCommonFuture1987)appeared tobe too ambiguous, in 1991 the IUCN-UNEP-WWF defined sustainable development in Caring for the Earth: A Strategy for Sustainable Living (1991, 10) as »improving the quality of human life while living within the carrying capacity of supporting ecosystems«. Agenda 21 reflects the global consen­susandpoliticalcommitmentatthehighestlevelondevelopmentandenvironmentcooperation(Earth Summit…1992). The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development held in Rio de Janeiro was a significant milestone that set a new agenda for sustainable development (titled the Agenda 21). Since then, representatives of the world’s nations have met at several major conferences under the auspices of the United Nations and have reaffirmed their commitment to sustainable devel­opment (World Summit…2002). In 2015, Heads of State and Government, and High Representatives metinNewYork.Theyadoptedthe2030AgendaforSustainableDevelopmentanditsglobalSustainable Development Goals (hereinafter, the 2030 Agenda) and committed to achieving sustainable develop­ment in its three pillars – economic, social and environmental – in a balanced and integrated manner. These goals will guide decisions for the next 15 years. The 2030 Agenda acknowledges the importance of regional and subregional dimensions, regional economic integration, and interconnectivity in sus­tainabledevelopment.The2030Agendaalsorecognisesthatsocialandeconomicdevelopmentdepends on the sustainable management of natural resources (Transforming Our World 2015). Anestedsustainabilitymodel,consideringsocietyandeconomyasasubsystem,nestedintheenvi­ronmentseemsanadequatebasisforapproachingsustainability(Figure1).Thenestedmodelproposes to conceptualize the three pillars: environment, society and economy, hierarchically. The nested sustainability shows that the economy exists within the society, and both the economy and society exist within the environment. As all parts of the economy require interaction among peo­ple, the economy lies entirely within the society. Nonetheless, the society is beyond just the economy. Therearemanyimportantaspectsofthesocietythatarenotprimarilybasedonexchanginggoodsand services(e.g.,relationships,religion,andethics).Inturn,thesocietyexistsentirelywithintheenvironment, as our basic requirements (air, food, and water) come from the environment. Finally, the environment encirclesthesociety(Hart1999).Intheearliestperiodsofhumanhistory,theenvironmentshapedsoci­etytoagreatextent.Contemporaryhumanactivitiesarereshapingtheenvironmentatanever-increasing rate (Cooper et al. 2018). However, as people need food, water and air to survive, society can never be greater than the environment (Hart 1999). In any case, the dimensions or proportions of the circles in Figure1arenotintendedtoweightheimportanceofanyofthethreepillarsofsustainabledevelopment. Notwithstanding,theword‘sustainable’isoftenusedtorefertotheprocessesofeconomicandsocial change. After all, the integration of the environment and development is absolutely required. No less diversethandefinitionsof‘sustainable’arethevariousnotionsofdevelopment.Theconventionallyunder-stood term of development requires continuous economic growth (Goulet 1995) which can conflict with the principles of sustainability. In this work we use the term development as a synonym of sus­tainabledevelopment,whichtakesintoaccountsocialequity,thequalityofthelivingenvironment,and developed networks of economic activities and services. At this point, the question »How can we mea­sure the sustainable development of a country, region or landscape?« arises. Figure 1: Nested sustainability model (adapted from Giddings, Hopwood and O’Brien 2002). Manystudies(e.g.,headlineindicatorsoftheEurope2020strategy(Europe2020…2010))havedevel-oped sets of quantitative indicators as measurements of sustainable development on different scales; however environmental indicators are usually scarce or even absent (e.g., Zuleeg 2010). This could be due to a lack of data on environmental indicators or the continuous disregard for the environmental dimension in sustainable development assessments. While social and economic indicators are bound to administrative units such as the municipality, region or country, environmental indicators usually arenot.Thus,anotherchallengeregardingthedataavailabilityofenvironmentalindicatorsisthedeter-minationoftheirgeographicalarea,i.e.naturegoesbeyondadministrativeborders,asdoenvironmental problems such as pollution, water management or natural disasters. This may hamper the collection of environmental data to be included in sustainable development assessment studies. Aswebelievethatdifferentareasmightpresentdifferentsustainablefactors,aspecificstudyofkarst areas should be done through the employment of a specific set of sustainable development indicators (see subchapter 4.2). Hence, with this work we also aim to create a set of indicators to measure and monitor sustainable development in karst areas, which reflect the interface between social, economic and environmental domains, taking into account the karst specificities of the region. 2.1.1 Approaches for measuring sustainable development 2.1.1.1 Worldwide The most popular approach to measure sustainable development is through the usage of sustain-abledevelopmentindicators.Theoverallgoalofthecreationofsustainabledevelopmentindicatorsfrom environmentalandsocio-economicdataistoinformpolicymakersandthegeneralpublicaboutimple­menting sustainability actions. A major advantage is that it provides an overall picture of the state or performance of a system of interest in a simple and understandable way (Wu and Wu 2012). In this way,thesetofindicatorsdescribingthedevelopmentofacountry,region,orlandscape,isdonebymeans ofanumberofrepresentativeelementswhichsimplifythecomplexityofacountry,regionorlandscape, without taking it out of context (Deelstra 1995). However, as pointed out by Wu and Wu (2012), sus­tainabledevelopmentindicatorsarenotalwaysobjective,preciseorcertain.Tosomeextentsustainable development indicators are subjective because of the nature of the indicators themselves, and also due to the choice of specific indicators. Therefore, all indicators have a degree of uncertainty that emerges from the methods of collection and data analysis, and the unpredictable nature of the human-envi­ronmentalsystems(WuandWu2012).AsMeadows(1998,2)wrote:»Wetrytomeasurewhatwevalue. Wecometovaluewhatwemeasure«.Consequently,differentstudiesmightusedifferentindicatorsgiven thedifferenceofperspectivesorparadigms,orbeingmoreappropriatethanothersforaparticularregion (Wu and Wu 2012). A very important aspect in the selection of indicators is that indicators are usual­ly linked to data availability and scale (Wascher 2004). The major development of sustainability indicators started after the Earth Summit in 1992, when the important role that indicators could play in helping countries make informed decisions concern­ing sustainable development was recognised (Indicators of Sustainable Development…2007). At the present time, indicators of sustainable development suggested by various groups are very diversified (Carpenter 1995) and have been used at global, national, and local scales (Wu and Wu 2012). At the internationallevel,therearemanyorganisationscontributingtothedevelopmentofsustainabilityindi­cators, such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the United NationsCommissiononSustainableDevelopment(UNCSD)andtheBalatonGroup.WuandWu(2012) havelistedfivetypesofindicatorframeworkswidelyrecognisedintheliterature:1)Pressure-state-response (PSR)frameworks,2)Theme-basedframeworks,3)Capital-basedframeworks,4)Integratedaccount­ingframeworksand5)Bossel’sorientorframework.TheIndicatorsofSustainableDevelopment(2007) described different approaches for the development of sustainable development indicators: 1) Driving force-state-response frameworks, 2) Issue- or theme-based frameworks, 3) Capital frameworks, 4) Accountingframeworksand5)Aggregatedindicators.ThePSRframeworkwasaneminentearlyindi­cator framework, and was adapted by several organisations. It is based on a causality concept in which human activities exercise pressures on the environment and change its ‘state’ (quality and the quanti­ty of natural resources). Society responds to these changes through policies (‘responses’) (OECD core set…1993; Figure 2). TheDrivingforce-State-Response(DSR)framework,asuccessortoPSR,publishedbytheUNCSD in 1996, is the most widely recognised for the selection of indicators (Wu and Wu 2012). An expand­ed version of the DSR framework is the Driving force-Pressure-State-Impact-Response (DPSIR) framework(WuandWu2012)adoptedbytheEuropeanEnvironmentAgency(EEA)actingasaninte-grated approach for reporting. TheDPSIRframeworkattemptstodistinguishthecauseofthepressureontheenvironment,human activitymainlythroughproductionandconsumption,fromthepressureitself.Adifferentiationismade betweenthestateoftheenvironment,ofaparticularresource,andtheimpactithasonotherresources within the environment or other dimensions, however the identification of indicators in these cate­gories is not always straightforward. This framework implicitly emphasises the environmental dimension of sustainable development (Geniaux et al. 2009). Variations of the PSR frameworks con­tinue to be used in more environmentally orientated indicator sets, however, recent revisions of the UNCSDindicatorshavediscontinuedtheDSRframeworkduetothefollowingidentifiedissues:itwas notsuitable to address the complex linkages among issues; the classification of indicators into ‘driving force’,‘state’or‘response’wasoftenambiguous;therewereuncertaintiesovercausallinkages;anditdid not adequately emphasise the relationship between the indicators and policy issues (Indicators of Sustainable Development…2007). The Theme- or issue-based frameworks are basedin a more flexible structure, organising the indi­catorsinthedimensionsofsustainabledevelopmentandtheirmainadvantageistheabilitytolinkindicators topolicyprocessesandtargets. Theseframeworksaremostlyusedinofficialnationalindicatorsets,as wellasforregionalstrategiesandindicatorprogrammes,suchastheindicatorsusedintheBaltic21Action Figure 2: PSR indicator framework (adapted from OECD core set…1993). Programme, the Mediterranean Sustainable Development Strategy and the Sustainable Development IndicatorsfortheEuropeanUnion(IndicatorsofSustainableDevelopment…2007).Themostrecognised exampleofaTheme-basedframeworkistheUNCSDfrom2001,revisedin2007.Capital-basedframe­worksattempttocalculatenationalwealthasafunctionofthesumofdifferentkindsofcapitalexpressed incommonterms,usuallyinmonetaryterms. Thisapproachincludesseveraltypesofcapital:financial capital and produced capital goods, natural capital, human capital, and social capital. The frameworks based on this approach are diverse, but, in general, they all initially try to identify what development is, and secondly, how the development can be made sustainable (Indicators of Sustainable Development…2007).Oneexampleofacapital-basedframeworkisDaly’sTriangle-basedsystemsup-ported by the Balaton Group (Wu and Wu 2012). Arguments against this approach pointed out by the United Nations (Indicators of Sustainable Development…2007) include: disagreement about how to express all forms of capital in monetary terms; issues of data availability; questions about substitution (e.g., biodiversity cannot be substituted); and concerns regarding intra-generational equity. Integrated accountingframeworksaddresssynthesisedeconomicandenvironmentalspheresbasedonnation­alaccountingmethodologies. ThemostprominentexampleistheSystemofIntegratedEnvironmental and Economic Accounting (SEEA), developed by the United Nations, the European Commission, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the OECD (Indicators of Sustainable Development…2007; Wu and Wu 2012). Several countries use the SEEA, and it is in the process of beingproposedasaninternationalstatisticalstandard,however,integratedaccountingframeworkswere not specifically set up to address sustainable development and thus do not take into consideration the social (and institutional) dimension of sustainable development. The UNCSD indicators from 2007 furtherstrengthentherelationshipwiththeSEEA.Alargenumberofaggregatedindicators(orindices) havebeendevelopedtocaptureelementsofsustainabledevelopment.Manyoftheseindicatorsarefocused on only one dimension of sustainable development, rather than offering a comprehensive view of sus­tainable development. Well-known examples of aggregated indicators include, among others, the EcologicalFootprint,theEnvironmentalSustainabilityIndex,GreenGDP,andGenuineProgressIndicator (Indicators of Sustainable Development…2007; Wu and Wu 2012). Figure 3: The DPSIR assessment framework (adapted from Environmental indicators…1999). Thereareseveralotherapproachestousingindicatorsforsustainabledevelopmentbesidestheafore­mentioned formal frameworks. At the European level, among the most prominent indicator sets for sustainabledevelopmentaretheEuropeanUnionSustainableDevelopmentIndicatorsandtheEurope 2020 indicators. The Sustainable Development Indicators approved by the European Commission in 2005 encompass10 strategic objectives: 1) socio-economic development, 2) sustainable consumption and production, 3) social inclusion, 4) demographic changes, 5) public health, 6) climate change and energy, 7) sustainable transport, 8) natural resources, 9) global partnership and 10) good governance (fordetailedinformationaboutindicatorsseeEurostatArchive(2020)).TheEurope2020headlineindi­cators encompassfive main domains: 1) employment, 2) research and development, 3) climate change andenergy,4)educationand5)povertyandsocialexclusion.ThisdatasetisalsomaintainedbyEurostat, andmoredetailsabouttheindicatorscanbeacquiredatEurostat.OthersetsofindicatorsattheEuropean levelexist,howevertheyusuallyonlycoveronedomainofthethreesustainabilitypillars(e.g.,EEAindi­cators, covering only the environmental domain). 2.1.1.2 In Slovenia In Slovenia, a range of studies providing development indicators exists (e.g., Ravbar 2009; 2014), although this list drastically decreases in number if we focus on sustainable development indicators (i.e. indicators based on the three pillars of sustainability). Atthenationallevel,theimplementationofSlovenia’sDevelopmentStrategyismonitoredthrough annualreportsondevelopment.Thereportondevelopmentfrom2016(Porociloorazvoju2016)includ­ed development indicators on four main themes: 1) the macroeconomic framework; 2) factors of competitiveness; 3) demographic trends and social government; and 4) environmental, regional and spatial development. Sustainable development indicators for the national level havealsobeen definedby the Slovenian Statistical Office (Suvorov, Rutar and Žitnik 2010) and the project Indicators of Well­being in Slovenia (Kazalniki blaginje v Sloveniji 2015), which provides a general assessment of their contribution to well-being. However, the indicators mentioned are intended to be used at the nation­al level, not taking into account regional conditions (Vintar Mally 2018). Seljak (2001) also provided ageneralassessmentofsustainabledevelopmentforthenationallevel,andtheauthorperformedcom­parativeanalysesofsustainabledevelopmentfor24countriesfor1990,1995and1998.Thissetofindicators includes 25 themes: 1) production; 2) macroeconomic stability and country consumption; 3) factors ofeconomicgrowth–capital;4)factorsofeconomicgrowth–humanresources;5)factorsofeconomic growth – technological resources; 6) factors of economic growth – natural resources; 7) international trade; 8) consumption habits; 9) structure of production; 10) number and population structure; 11) communities, migration and regional structure; 12) economic inequality; 13) gender inequality; 14) life expectancy; 15) diseases, harmful habits of individuals and health structure; 16) education level; 17)rights,freedomandcooperation;18)security;19)airpollution(processesandstate);20)waterpol­lution (processes and state); 21) soil quality; 22) noise pollution; 23) non-renewable resources; 24) renewable resources and 25) sources of electrical energy. An assessment of well-being at the municipality level, although covering the entire country, was donebyRovan,MalešicandBregar(2009).Theauthorsmeasuredgeographicaldifferencesofwell-being inSloveniawithquantitativesocial,economic,demographicandenvironmentalindicators.Vintar(2003) hasdefinedthirty-twoindicators(sixeconomic,twelvesocial,andfourteenenvironmentalindicators), which were used to assess sustainable development in the period from 1996 to 2002. In 2009, Vintar Mally (2009) applied the same indicators to monitor sustainable regional development for the period from 2003 to 2007. In 2018, Vintar Mally (2018) proposed a slightly changed set of indicators to mon­itorthesustainableregionaldevelopmentinSloveniabetween2010and2014.Thesethreestudieswere done at the level of statistical regions.Lampic et al. (2016) determined agricultural sustainability atthe level of statistical regions. This study specifically assessed the sustainable orientation of agriculture in Slovenianregionsbyapplyingasetofindicatorsincludingtheeconomic,environmentalandsocialaspects ofsustainabilityforagriculture. Althoughthisstudydidnotdirectlyassesssustainableregionaldevel­opment, some indicators used were also important inassessingthe sustainable development of Bela krajina (see subchapter 3.3.1). Cerne and Kušar (2010) proposed a list of indicators for monitor­ing regional development, measuring spatial potential, spatial development and environmental indicators. Formonitoringregionaldevelopment,theauthorsidentifiedtengroupsofindicators:1) demographicstructure;2)socio-economicstructure;3)settlementstructure;4)countryside;5)qual-ityofliving;6)infrastructure;7)landuse;8)protectedareas;9)degradedareas;and10)endangered areas. Lampic, Mrak and Plut (2011) assessed the development potential for the sustainable devel­opmentofprotectedareasinSlovenia. Theauthorsofthatstudyidentifiedfourtypesofdevelopment potentialofprotectedareassuchasenvironmental,cultural,socialandhuman. Thestudyrepresents an example of an assessment of sustainable development for specific areas, apart from administra­tive units, taking into account the characteristics of those areas, which is also the main goal of our study.KladnikandRavbar(2003)studiedthedevelopmentaladvantagesanddrawbacksoftheSlovenian countryside, employing a set of regional development indicators through the development factors inthecountryside. Development factorsin thecountryside accordingto theirstudyinclude: 1)nat-urallimitationfactors;2)landandagriculturalsystems;3)propertyconditions;4)populationstructure; 5)economicefficiency;6)personalinfrastructure;7)frontierstatus;and8)stateoftheenvironment. This study is of particular importance as it employs some parameters characteristic to karst land­scapes (karstification and the occurrence of temperature inversions in concave relief forms). These wereincludedinourproposedsetofindicatorstoassessthesustainabledevelopmentofkarstregions (see subchapter 4.2). For a better overview of the aforementioned studies carried out regarding development within Slovenia,wehavesummarisedtheirfocusedthemesinTable1.Itisimportanttomentionthatthisinvolved certain generalisations of some themes, and some were more specifically described to allow for com­parison between all studies and better understanding of the theme indicators they used. Some of the studiesinTable1presentasetofindicatorsthataddressthepillarsofsustainability,othersdonot,there­foretheoverviewofthesustainabledevelopmentindicatorspresentedmightbesubjecttoacertainlevel of subjectivity (e.g., whether to consider a certain indicator as economic or social). From an examination of Table 1, we can see that the studies on development assessment are most­ly done for administrative units. This is logical, as on the one hand data availability is mainly linked to administrative divisions, and policies are mainly directed to administrative borders. On the other hand, the majority of the studies use general indicators for the assessment of sustainable development and do not include specific indicators which concern the characteristics of a specific region/area. We contend that the characteristics of specific areas, such as karst regions, should not be neglected in the measurement and monitoring of the development of those areas, as only in this way can the develop­ment be achieved in a sustainable manner. InordertoassessthesustainabledevelopmentofBelakrajina,wehaveusedacombinedsetofindi­cators, mainly fromRavbar (2014) and Vintar Mally (2018). This set of indicators consists of the three main pillars of sustainable development: environmental, economic and social (see subchapter 3.3.1). Even though the modern sustainability movement has become more significant in recent years, from a review of the sustainability performance indicators we noted that there is a lack of specific indica­torsforkarstregions.Someeffortshavebeenongoinginordertogainunderstandingoftheimplications of karst regions from an environmental perspective (e.g., van Beynen and Townsend 2005), however aholisticmeasureofsustainabledevelopmentofkarstregionsislacking.Therefore,astheprimeobjec­tive of this work was to analyse the state of Bela krajina with special emphasis on regional indicators and its specificities (e.g., rural area and karst landscape) we have proposed a set of indicators for mon­itoring sustainable development in karst regions (see subchapter 4.2). The aim of the proposed set of indicators is to provide an approach to the development of karst regions that takes into account the values and functions of its landscapes, as well as its vulnerability. Table 1: Overview of the thematic development indicators used in Slovenian studies. Source Economy Social Environment Level of assessment Seljak (2001) • Production • Population structure • Air pollution National • Macroeconomic • Structure of production • Water pollution stability and country • Communities,migration • Soil quality consumption and regional structure • Noise pollution • Capital • Economic inequality • Non-renewable • Human resources • Gender inequality resources • Technological resources • Life expectancy • Renewable resources • Natural resources • Health structure • Sources of electrical • International trade • Education level energy • Consumption habits • Rights, freedom and cooperation • Security Kladnik • Economic efficiency • Population structure • Natural limitation Settlement and Ravbar • Personal infrastructure factors (2003) • Frontier status • Land and agricultural systems • Property conditions • Agricultural burdening of the environment Rovan, • Economic activity Malešic and Bregar (2009) • Living standards • Individual well-being • Demography • Leisure time • Municipal administration • Criminality • Education • Health • Environment Municipal Cerne • Economic structure • Demographic and Kušar and labour market characteristics (2010) • Transport infrastructure • Social welfare and • Telecommunication standard of living infrastructure and • Settlement network information society • Urban system • Energetic infrastructure connectivity • Research and • Living standard in development municipal centres and regional centres • Socio-economic structure of the countryside • Education • Environmental Regional management • Land use • Protected areas • Degraded areas • Areas with natural hazards • Spatial identity • Functioning of system of spatial development Source Economy Social Environment Level of assessment Suvorov, • Economic growth • Safety • Quality of natural National Rutar and Žitnik • Research and development • Population, gender equality and poverty resources • Natural resources (2010) • National debt • Care for all generations (balance) • Intensity of the use of natural resources Lampic, • Immovable material • Natural values Protected Mrak and cultural heritage • Biodiversity areas Plut (2011) • Movable material • Natural resources cultural heritage • Ecosystem services • Living heritage • Land • Cultural potential of society • Inclusion of the population in public life of the local community • Level of trust and sense of security • Sense of belonging to the local area • Connections among family, friends and neighbours • Demographic structure • Education Ravbar • Labour market • Demographic power Municipal (2014) • Traffic-geographical • Social situation accessibility • Well-being • Competitiveness and innovation Kazalniki • Income of the • Satisfaction/happiness • Land and ecosystems National blaginje population • Education • Air v Sloveniji • Property and economic • Health • Water (2015) security • Social climate • Climate • Poverty and social • Personal security • Energy sources exclusion • Communication • Non-energy sources • Consumption • Culture and leisure • Waste • Work and employment • Housing Source Economy Social Environment Level of assessment Porocilo • Macroeconomic stability • Human capital • Environmental National o razvoju and economic growth • Innovation capacity development (2016) • Stability and quality • Roleofgovernmentand of public finances institutional framework • Financial markets • Demographic changes and entrepreneurial • Quality of life and indebtedness social risks • Competitiveness of entrepreneurial sector • Labour market • Social insurance system and its long-term sustainability • Regional development Lampic et al. • Food production • Conservationofnatural • Increaseinemployment Statistical (2016) and food security resourcesandecological rate of the population region • Improvement of income balance • Improvement of situation and the • Conservation demographic structure marketing of products of biodiversity • Management of rural and services • Useofenvironmentally-areas and revitalisation • Technological advances -friendly technologies of rural areas and increase in productivity Vintar • Economic activity • Education • Environmental Statistical (2003); • Efforts to build the • Demographic structure pressures region Vintar Mally economy • Social situation • Responses to (2009; 2018) environmental issues • State of individual landscape components 2.1.2 Landscapes as pivotal areas for sustainable management Over the last century, humans have changed landscapes more rapidly and extensively than at any other time in human history. This has happened to a great extent to meet growing demands for food, fresh water, timber, natural materials and fuel. Land use changes have contributed to substantial net gainsinhumanwell-beingandeconomicdevelopment.However,thesegainshavebeenachievedatahigh costintermsoflossofbiodiversity,degradationofecosystems(MillenniumEcosystemAssessment2005) andgeodiversity(ErharticandZorn2012),andcanproducenumerousundesirablesocialimpacts,such as increasing capital costs to impoverished smallholders (Meyfroidt et al. 2018). Meeting the future needsofanexpandingpopulationwhilstconservingnaturalareas,haltingbiodiversitylossandincreas­ing the proportion of renewable energy will accelerate competition for available land (Lambin and Meyfroidt 2011). Toachievesustainabledevelopment,itiscertainthatweshouldpursuehumanwell-beingandenvi­ronmentalprotectiontogether;andthataholisticapproachisneededformanagementofthedevelopment process, embracing economic, social, cultural and ecological considerations. Landscapes are a frame-workwithinwhichthiscanbeapplied(LandscapeConservationLaw2000;Wu2013),astheyrepresent theplacewherelandandpeoplecometogether,addressingthespatialdimensionsofcultureandmean­ings of land (Bloemers et al. 2010). Wu (2013) contends that the landscape represents a pivotal scale domain for the research and application of sustainability, as local ecosystem-based studies tend to be spatially too small, whereas at the global scale, it is usually impossible to allow for in-depth and sys­tematic studies. Forman (1995) also contends that landscapes represent the best operational scale for assessing and shaping the relationship between society and environment. The sustainability of a particular landscape is greatly dependent on the way we manage the land (Wascher 2004). Therefore, the sustainable development of a region is linked to the management of its landscapes. Cultural landscapes are multifunctional landscapes which simultaneously provide and supportproductivity,habitat,andregulatory,social,andeconomicfunctions(DeGroot2006;O’Farrell andAnderson2010).Theextentofintegrationbetweenenvironmental(ecological)andsocio-economic functionsofthelandscapedependsonthepatternsandintensitiesoflanduse.Landuseisabasichuman activity that shapes socio-economic development and modifies structures and processes in the envi­ronment (Mander and Uuemaa 2010). Duetolandusechanges,landscapeshaveundergonerapidchanges.Themaindriversoflandscape changewereidentifiedasagriculturemodernisation(MatthewsandSelman2006),inparallelwithother economicactivitiessuchasurbanisation(Marušic1995;VanEetveldeandAntrop2004;Matthewsand Selman2006),accessibilityrelatedtotransportationmodesandinfrastructure(VanEetveldeandAntrop 2004), natural and human-induced forces such as climate change (Matthews and Selman 2006), glob-alisation(VanEetveldeandAntrop2004),aswellastheimpactofpublicpolicies(MatthewsandSelman 2006). Bender et al. (2005) state that extensively managed traditional land use is disappearing due to the intensification of agricultural production on the one hand, and the retreat of agriculture from unfavourableareasontheotherhand.MatthewsandSelman(2006)arguethattraditionalfarmingprac­tices, highly valued by society in their inherited form, appear now as obsolete and are no longer viable with the development and modernisation of agriculture. Globalisation of markets and the increase in production capacity through technological progress are directing the loss of relevance and the declining economic viability of traditional products from local agriculture, particularly in marginal agriculturalareas(HobbsandCramer2007).Therefore,thereductionofagriculturalpracticesandcon­sequentlandabandonmentisconsideredamajortrendofchangeaffectingremoteruralareaswithpoor accessibility and less favourable conditions, both social and economic. Remote rural areas are usually affected by decreasing population and agriculture is becoming less productive, or in areas of land with less favourable physical qualities, the marginalisation of land use and land abandonment is predicted to increase (Van Eetvelde and Antrop 2004). Rural depopulation leads to a loss of traditional farming knowledge(HobbsandCramer2007).Thelossoftraditionallandmanagementpracticesleadstoecosys­temchange,whichislikelytoleadtothesubsequentlossofimportantbiologicalorculturalvalues(Hobbs andCramer2007)andfunctions.Oncelandmanagementislacking,theecosystemmaybetransformed into other ecosystem types, and in this case ecosystem development after landabandonment is viewed as a deterioration, because the system is developing away from something that is valued (Hobbs and Cramer2007).Nevertheless,landabandonmentcanbeseenfromtwodistinctperspectives,ontheone hand some contend that it may contribute to the natural restoration of the landscape, towards restora­tion of natural ecosystems diminishing human activities and impacts on the landscape (Bowen et al. 2007;NavarroandPereira2012).Ontheotherhand,abandonmentofagriculturallandscapesmaythreat-en landscape diversity, in particular functional diversity associated to cultural landscapes (Plieninger et al. 2014). Most European landscape systems have been developed almost entirely by the presence of humanactivities,andtraditionalpracticesandmanagementofthesesystemshaveshapedtheEuropean landscapes(HobbsandCramer2007).Slovenianculturallandscapesrecognisedasvaluableduetotheir geographical and cultural diversity are probably one of the main elements of national identity in the country (Golobic and Lestan 2016). Thus, we contend that the sustainable development of landscapes, andtheconservationofbiodiversityandlandscapediversitydependonthecontinuationofhumaninter­vention.Inthiswaythetraditionalandhighlyvaluedlandscapescanbemaintainedwhilstalsoassistingwith economic and social sustainable development (Ribeiro and Šmid Hribar 2019). Moreover,aslocalsandnon-localsdecidewhatismeaningfulforthemandhowtomanagetheland­scape (Beilin, Lindborg and Queiroz 2011), landscape management is dependent on local inhabitants and their cultural context, and policies at local levels. The assessment of landscape changes must con­sequently be used to inform decision-making, because an understanding of what is going on in the landscape can improve its management (Sayer et al. 2013). Although the main challenge in the assess­ment of development at a landscape level is linked to the different landscape typology classifications, therearenopreciserulesregardinglandscapedivision.Therefore,landscapeclassificationmaybesub­jective, and data collection on sustainable indicators at a landscape level may be difficult as these do not correspond to previously established administrative units. Moreover, regions are currently seen as havinganincreasinglyimportantroleinsustainabledevelopmentbecausetheyareintermediariesbetween the national and local levels, and by the growing consensus that sustainable development is an essen­tial benchmark within future regional development (Clement, Hansen and Bradley 2003). The study of the links between landscape features and sustainable development is relevant for the developmentofpoliciesrelatedtolanduseandregionaldevelopment,suchasagriculturalpolicies,region­al policies andspatial planning policies (Waltert, Schulz and Schläpfer 2011). European studies on the impactofthelandscapeinregionaldevelopmentarescarceandaremainlyfocusedonthevalueofpro­tected areas to the regional economy (e.g., Getzner and Jungmeier 2002; Mayer et al. 2010; Gabrovec et al. 2017). 2.1.3 Policies vs. land use and development Landscapes are subject to a variety of policies targeting the preservation of landscapes, securing agriculturalproductionorpreventingdepopulationinremoteregions.Landuseregulation(e.g.,land­scape inventories and preservation regulations) and other amenity-related policies (e.g., agricultural subsidies)mayaffectregionaldevelopmentbyinfluencinglandscapequalityandthroughdirectimpacts on production conditions and other market factors (Waltert, Schulz and Schläpfer 2011). Some European initiatives have underlined the role of the landscape in sustainable development, recognising the need for new approaches with clear implications for the management, planning and assessment of landscapes (Wascher 2004). These are: • the Pan-European Biological and Landscape Diversity Strategy (1995); • the European Landscape Convention (2000); • the EuropeanCommission’s reform of the Common Agricultural Policy towards rural development and more sustainable principles (Agenda 2000 1997); • Guiding Principles for Sustainable Spatial Development adopted by the European Conference of Ministers responsible for regional planning (2000). The measures of European policies are transcribed to national legislation without much consider-ationoftheirimpactsinlocalterritories,whennationalpolicyonculturallandscapesislacking(Golobic and Lestan 2016). The impact and effects of national and supranational public policies on the landscape may have negative consequences in landscape changes as these policies are typically made far from the farmer, consumer and other affected local agents (Primdahl, Kristensena and Swaffield 2013). For instance, financial incentives (such as subsidies given for special land use) for rural landscapes are typically dis­tant fromlocal landscapes (Primdahl, Kristensena andSwaffield2013) andtherefore often donot take into account the natural characteristics of the landscapes (e.g., the vulnerability of karst landscapes). Of great importance among policies that indirectly regulate the landscape are agricultural policies to whichEuropeancountriesandtheEuropeanUnionallocatelargepartsoftheirbudgets(Waltert,Schulz andSchläpfer 2011). In the EuropeanUnion,agricultural policies usually dictate the trajectory of land usechangesandtosomedegreealsodeterminetherateandtheextentoflandabandonment,orthechange fromagriculturetootherlandusetypes. Abovethepoliciesdirectedtoagricultureatnationalorsupra­nationallevels,tradepoliciesarelikelytohavehugeimpactsonlocaleconomies,leadingtomarginalisation of agriculture in some areas and, hence, increasing land abandonment (Hobbs and Cramer 2007). In2013around66%ofthemoneythatSloveniareceivedfromEUfundswasallocatedtoitsregions (EU Nomenclature of Units for Territorial Statistics – NUTS 2), aiming to reduce the economic, social and territorial disparities among the regions, while 24% went to agriculture in order to support farm­ers and promote the production of healthy food, environmental protection and stimulation of rural economies. Theremaining funds (10%)were allocated to growth and jobs; citizenship, freedom,secu­rityandjustice;andadministration.In2014anewreformcameintoforceinordertofurtherstrengthen European agricultural competitiveness in a more environmentally friendly way, and to reduce the gap for countries like Slovenia, which receive less money than the EU average (EU budget…2014). This isespeciallyimportantwhen44%oftheSlovenianterritoryiskarstic(Novak1993).Ciglicetal.(2012) have contributed to the shortcomings of the European indicators by designing new indicators based onthecharacteristicsofthekarstterrain,especiallywhen44%oftheSlovenianterritoryiskarstic(Novak 1993). The authors demonstrated that approximately 22% of the agricultural land in Slovenia is con­sidered as less suitable for agriculture due to karst characteristics. AccordingtotheOECDdefinitionofruralareas,thewholeofSloveniaisclassifiedunderruralareas. TheRuralDevelopmentProgramme(RDP)forSlovenia,adoptedbytheEuropeanCommissionin2015, focuses mainly on three priorities: restoring, preserving and enhancing ecosystems related to agricul­ture and forestry; competitiveness of the agri-sector and sustainable forestry; and social inclusion and local development in rural areas (Factsheet…2015). Challenges related to land abandonment and the status of ecosystems with pollution of surface and ground water and the pressure on biodiversity are centraltotheSlovenianRDP.Challengesrelatedtotheviabilityandcompetitivenessofagriculture,espe­cially during times of economic crisis, are also considerable. The RDP claims that »it is necessary to addressthelowproductivityofagriculture,improveinadequateagriculturalinfrastructureandhelpyoung farmers to get started« (Factsheet…2015). Although the range of different policies tackling development issues is diverse, the main problem comes when these policies are enacted separately from each other, creating various systems (with dif­ferent interests) and therefore legal anomalies. Despite the fact that some efforts are being made from a political point of view towards a holistic viewofsustainabledevelopment,wehaveencounteredothermajorissuesregardingthelinkagesbetween policies and sustainable development of karst regions (for details see Ribeiro 2017). Present policies do not take into account karst specificities and its vulnerability. At a national level, the only legal act that states karst protection is the Underground Cave Protection Act (Zakon o varstvu…2004), which regulates cave activities and cave protection, and still there is a lack of implementation of this act. Once more, these legal gaps might drive substantial negative effects in the landscape, with direct andindirectconsequencesforlanduseanddevelopment(hamperingsustainabledevelopment).Inacoun-try with 44% karst surface it is imperative that the protection of karst areas increases in importance and has priority over other land uses. 2.1.4 Public participation »Sustainable development can be achieved only through the involvement of all stakeholders. It links government accountability and environmental protection. It focuses on interactions between the public and public authorities in a democratic context and is forging a new process for public participation in the negotiation and implementation of international agreements« (Aarhus Convention 2014, 15). The importance of public involvement in public issues or seeking public participation in decision-making processes is currently being emphasised and is a prominent theme, which is reflected in the recognitionofpublicinvolvementinvariousEuropeanandinternationalinitiatives(e.g.,theBrundtland reportfrom1987,theAgenda21from1992,theAarhusConventionfrom1998).Thechallengeofsus­tainable development requires active public participation in public matters and the involvement of all relevantstakeholdersinthedecision-makingprocess.Publicparticipationinsustainabledevelopment provides a forum to reveal social values differing among stakeholders and may include: cultural val-ues,employment,recreationandtourism,variousvaluesprovidedbylandscapes(e.g.,food,aesthetics), etc. Landscapes and their components have a diverse range of functions, and are valued in multiple ways by different stakeholders (Sayer et al. 2013). Additionally, social potential is considered a driving force for development, and therefore people should be given opportunities to actively participate in decision-making. Without social potential the sustainable development of an area, promoting protec­tion on one hand and development on the other, would not be possible (Lampic, Mrak and Plut 2011). Here the scheme represented in Figure 1 helps us to understand that the economy lies entirely within society,andcontinuinghumaninterventionsintheenvironmentareinevitable.Conservationataland­scapelevel therefore depends on management, protection, and restoration. All the activities occurring within the landscape are related to human intervention (through active management or even through the abandonment of these practices), thus public participation has a very important role towards the sustainable development of a landscape, a region or a country. 2.1.5 Karst features and sustainable development Theterm‘karst’describesaparticularlandscapecontainingcavesandextensiveundergroundwater systems,which develops onespecially solublerocks such as limestone,marble,andgypsum.Karst sys-temsarecomposedoftwocloselyinterspersedsubsystems,hydrologicalandgeochemical,whichoperate upon the karstic rocks. Karst features are the products of the interplay of processes in these connect-edsubsystems(FordandWilliams2007).FordandWilliams(2007,1)definedkarstas»comprisingterrain with distinctive hydrology and landforms that arise from a combination of high rock solubility and well developed secondary (fracture) porosity. Such areas are characterised by sinking streams, caves, enclosed depressions, fluted rock outcrops, and large springs«. 10–15% of the terrestrial surface of our planet is coveredbycarbonaterocksand20–25%oftheworld’spopulationobtainwaterfromkarstsources(Ford and Williams 2007). Karst occupies 44% of Slovenia’s surface (Gams 2003), and its value is reflected in the importance of natural values and rich stocks of karst groundwater. Karst springs provide about 43% of drinking water (Lah 1998). Karstlandscapesaresuitedtosustainabilityinvariousways,providingvaluableecosystemservices, particularlystoringpristinewater,providinglocalbuildingmaterials,andmitigatingclimatechange. However, thesustainabilityof karst systemsisthreatened byincreasing humandevelopment in these vulnerableregions(BrinkmannandGarren2011).Karstlandscapeshavedistinctphysical,social,eco­nomic,andculturalaspectsthatmakethemsignificant.Karstsystemscontainimportantnaturalfeatures, such as caves, springs and dolines that make them geomorphologically relevant and that set them apart from other landscapes. In some areas their beauty or uniqueness attracts tourists, and in others, theirsusceptibilitytodroughtandhazardousnaturemakessettlementchallenging.Likenootherland-scape,the karst environment is uniquely vulnerabletohumanimpact due tothe connectivity between theundergroundandsurface(BrinkmannandGarren2011). Theregionaldevelopmentinkarstareas should therefore be adapted to its specificities and take into account its vulnerability. For these rea­sons karst landscapes are interesting to explore from a sustainability perspective (Brinkmann and Garren 2011). We believe that the regional development of karst areas can only be attainable through sustainable development based on endogenous development potential. Efforts have already been made to under-standtheimplicationsofkarstregionsfromanenvironmentalviewpoint(BrinkmannandGarren2011). VanBeynenandTownsend(2005)establishedadisturbanceindexforkarstenvironmentswiththeexam­inationofavarietyoffactorsassociatedwithgeomorphology,hydrology,biota,socialaspectsandartificial infrastructure. This environmental index aims to measure the degree of disturbance in karst regions andwasusedwithinthepresentstudytoassessthestateofthekarstlandscapeofBelakrajina(seesub-chapter 3.1). Studies on sustainable development of karst regions are rare (e.g., Smrekar et al. 2007; Luthar et al. 2008;SustainabilityoftheKarstEnvironment2010;BrinkmannandGarren2011;Gabrovšeketal.2011), andmainlyaddressenvironmentaldegradationofkarstlandscapes,omittingthedevelopmentpotential oftheseareas,withafewnotableexceptions(e.g.,Smrekaretal. 2007). Still,theanalysisofthedevelop­ment potential and management of karst areas is of great importance in Slovenia. 2.2 Methodology The practical part of this research is divided into three main parts, essentially based on the three approachestoanalysisofthekarstlandscape(subchapters2.2.1,2.2.2and2.2.3).Itisimportanttomen­tion that the first (subchapter 3.1) and third (subchapter 3.3) parts focus on the municipal level, whilst covering the whole region of Bela krajina, and the second part (subchapter 3.2) focuses on the settle­ment level (Figure 4). To achieve sustainable development in karst regions, we first need to assess the degree of human disturbanceintheseregions.Therefore,thefirstapproachtomeasurethedegreeofhumandisturbance and to identify potential areas within the region that require more protection, was based on an envi­ronmentalindexspecificforkarstareasandwasappliedtothethreemunicipalitiesofBelakrajina:Crnomelj, MetlikaandSemic.TheKarstDisturbanceIndexusedwasdefinedbyvanBeynenandTownsend(2005), and classifies the human disturbance of karst lands by looking at a variety of factors associated with environmentaldegradationofkarstincludingpollution,cavedestruction,anddevelopment.Theresult of this environmental index (subchapter 3.1), i.e. the level of karst disturbance, is an index indicator of sustainable development in karst areas proposed by this work in subchapter 4.2. The aim of the second part is to better understand the landscape history and long term processes and transformations that are fundamental to the present-day perceptions of the landscape. Marcucci (2000, 68) claimed that »The history of each landscape is unique – it is also complicated«. The creation of the current landscape, as we see it now, is dependent on the values and activities that people had andcontinuetohaveintheirenvironment.Today’slandscapesareinparttheproductofhistoricalcul­tural values (Marcucci 2000). As a landscape can be seen as topological variations of vegetation cover, and it is possible todeter-mine its diversity based on land use patterns (Palang, Mander and Luud 1998), we analysed the spatial processesandpatternsacrosstemporalandspatialscales(subchapter3.2)tounveilthelandscapechanges. Structural changes in land use are symbolic of the restructuring occurring at the economic and social levels. The term ‘land use’ can be defined slightly differently among different sciences (Lisec, Pišek and Drobne 2013), and here we use the term in a broader sense, which includes the social and economic purposes and contexts for land management (Ellis 2010). Spatial and temporal analyses were under­taken on two case studies which were selected for an in-depth study of landscape changes over the last 200 years, based on historical sources. The two case studies were selected to represent the settlements Figure 4: Geographical location of the study region (Bela krajina), municipalities (Crnomelj, Metlika and Semic) and case studies (the settlements of Adlešici in Bojanci). p of Adlešici and Bojanci (subchapter 3.2), both located in the Crnomelj Municipality. The choice for these case studies was guided by the distinctive patterns of its landscapes contrasting with each other inlanduseandappearance.Althoughtheselocationshavedifferentmanagementregimes,theyareboth affected by difficult terrain (due to karst features) and isolation. Themainpurposeofthethirdpart(subchapter3.3),wastomakequantitativeandqualitativeanaly­ses (through the use of sustainable development indicators and structured interviews, respectively) of the landscape features for sustainable development. Here, the reasons for the differences in landscape structureanddevelopmentinthethreemunicipalities(Crnomelj,MetlikaandSemic;LocalAdmistrative Unit–LAU2)arediscussedbymeansofacomparativeapproach.Thefirststepwastoexplorethepoten­tialandlimitationsofeachlandscape(hererepresentedbythemunicipalities)usingasetofsustainable development indicators (subchapter 3.3.1). Furthermore, based on this analysis, and following a sim­ilar approach used by Filepné Kovács et al. (2015), we created a model matrix of different landscape types reflecting the population retention capacity of these landscapes in the future. In the next step we placedthemunicipalitieswithinthemodelscenariosand,finally,weaddressedfuturescenariosforBela krajina based on the model scenarios attributed to each municipality (subchapter 3.3.1.4). By ‘future scenarios’ we mean alternative futures regarding the actual situation of each municipality. The specif­ic objectives of this step were: to compare the landscape functions in each municipality and between the three municipalities; to create a model matrix based on the landscape functions; to place the three municipalities in the model; to identify the differences and similarities among municipalities; and to illustrate the alternative futures of the region. As the substantive orientation ofthis chapter is based on the analyses of human relations with the landscape and their effects on sustainable development, the second step was to qualitatively analyse the landscapes of Bela krajina for sustainable development (subchapter 3.3.2). Data gathering in social sciences is often based on interviews. This technique is also becoming increasingly popular in differ-entfieldsofnaturalscience(e.g.,MacDonaldetal.2013)asitcanleadtotheacquisitionofinformation notprovidedbyothersources.Therearefourtypesofinterviews:informal,non-structured,semi-struc­tured, and structured interviews. This classification is based on a gradation from free conversation to different forms of questioning and answering. We used a structured type of interview as we intended to get answersfrom different locals to the same questions. In this respect, this type of interview is sim-ilartosurveys(Muršic2011),anothermethodcommonlyusedinsocialsciences(e.g.,PolajnarHorvat 2014). Structured interviews have the advantage of having social cues, such as voice, intonation, body languageetc.,whichcanaddextrainformationtotheanswers.Thisdata-gatheringmethodallowedfor in-depthinsightsintotherespondents’viewsandperspectivesofadiversegroupofpeople.Furthermore, theseinsightsweretakenintoconsiderationintheelaborationoftheproposedsetofsustainabledevel­opment indicators for karst regions (subchapter 4.2), which should be used together with the sustainable development indicators defined in the first step of this third part (subchapter 3.3.1). The results obtained from the quantitative and qualitative analyses of the landscape features for sustain­able development were compared amongst each other in subchapter 3.3.3. Finally, we proposed a set of sustainable development indicators (subchapter 4.2), titled ‘karst spe­cificindicators’,whichshouldbeusedforthemeasurementandmonitoringofsustainabledevelopment ofkarstregions.Itincludesspecificitiesofkarstsystemsthatarenottakenintoaccountinclassicalassess­ments of regional development. 2.2.1 Karst Disturbance Index Humanactivitieshavebeenimpactingonkarstenvironmentsforthousandsofyears(Zorn,Kumer and Ferk 2015), but as human population has increased, human disturbance of the karst landscapes has also increased. Activities such as quarrying, pollution, groundwater extraction, construction and agriculture are major motivators for disturbing surface and subsurface karst. Methods to quantify this disturbance have been created to help managers of natural resources formulate approaches to reduce anthropogenic impacts. An example of these methods is the Karst Disturbance Index introduced by van Beynen and Townsend (2005; 2011). AsmentionedbyvanBeynenandTownsend(2005),theassessmentofhumandisturbanceofkarst environmentscan becomplex andsubjective. Theoriginal indextoassess the humandisturbanceof karstareaswasadaptedtothedataandspecificitiesoftheselectedstudyregion,thereforesomeindi­cators were not taken into consideration as they proved to be irrelevant for the region, while others were included instead. This process also took into consideration the availability of data and this was discussed amongst karst experts to validate its utilisation. This ecosystem approach to karst systems recognises that vegetation, soil and biota influence and are influenced by karst processes. Thus, dis-turbanceofanycomponentoftheecosystemisconsideredasanimpactonkarstsystems(vanBeynen and Townsend 2005). The Karst Disturbance Index is composed of five main categories (Table 2): 1) geomorphology,2)atmosphere,3)hydrology,4)biotaand5)culture;andthesecategoriesinclude physical, biological, and social interactions within the landscape. In order to minimise complexity and provide a systematic approach to the evaluator, the authors of the original index created a cate­gorical framework where the indicators are collected andranked. The indicators indicate the degree ofhumandisturbanceforacertainparameterandeachindicatorisassignedascorefrom0–3accord­ing to the extent andseverity of the variable being evaluated. No human impact/karst disturbance is given a rating of 0; in the case of apparent disturbance we judged whether the impact is considered localised and not severe (rating=1), widespread (rating=2), or catastrophic (rating=3) (van Beynen and Townsend 2005). Data collection for the Karst Disturbance Index was obtained from published research articles and government reports on Bela krajina. The ratings from all the indicators were added and divid­ed by the highest possible score to attain a value between 0 and 1. The compilation of scores and interpretationof theirvalues canbe seenin Table3. Only those indicatorsapplicable to each munic­ipality can be used, if the indicator was not applicable it was removed. In the case of there being no available information/data for some indicators a ‘Lack of Data’ (LD) was assigned to those indica­tors. TheLack of Dataratingisobtained by thenumberofLDlistedin the indexdividedbythetotal numberofindicatorsusedinthestudy. Thisratingenablesustoevaluatethecredibilityoftheindex. ThehighertheLD rating,thelessconfidencethedegreeofdisturbancecanhave. Ifconfidencescores lessthan0.1itmeansahighdegreeofconfidence,whereasscoresgreaterthan0.4suggestmoreresearch is required before the application of the index is plausible for the selected study region (van Beynen and Townsend 2005). Table 2: Indicators of Karst Disturbance Index applied in Bela krajina (adapted from van Beynen and Townsend 2005). p (p. 32–33) Table 3: Classification of the degree of human disturbance on karst environments (van Beynen and Townsend 2005). Score Degree of disturbance 0.80–1.00 0.60–0.79 Highly disturbed Moderately disturbed 0.40–0.59 Disturbed 0.20–0.39 0–0.19 Lightly disturbed Pristine Table 2: Indicators of Karst Disturbance Index applied in Bela krajina (adapted from van Beynen and Townsend 2005). Category Attribute Indicator Rating 3 210 Surface 1. Quarrying/mining Large open mines Small working Smallscaleremoval None landforms mines of pavement Surface flooding (artificial surfaces) 2.Catastrophic areas Frequent flooding Rare areas None of flooding 3. Stormwater drainage (rated by the number 3 2 1 0 of ponors where water is funnelled andtheir catchment area) Infilling caves (% of infilled caves) 4.>66% 34–66% 1–33% None Atmosphere Geomorphology Illegal waste dumping (% area affected 5.>66% 34–66% 1–33% None by illegal dumping) Soils 6. Erosion Severe High Moderate Natural rate 7.Compactionduetolivestockorhumans(%) >66% 34–66% 1–33% None Subsurface 8. Subsurface flooding (human-induced Permanent cave Increased inter-Increased inter-Only naturalkarst cave flooding due to surface alteration inundation mittent flooding & mittent flooding & flooding due tofilling >50% filling <50% high rainfall Cave formation, removal or vandalism 9.Widespread ˜50%ofspeleothem Some isolated Pristine destruction removal spots of removal Mineral and sediment removal 10.Most of the ˜50% of cave Some isolated Pristine material removed affected spots Floor sediment compaction-destruction 11.Most of the floor ˜50% of floor Small trail through Almost pristine,sediments and cave sediments and cave mostly rock formations affected cave formation surface affected Daniela Ribeiro Air quality 12. Desiccation Widespread and Widespread but Isolated and very Pristine high levels low levels low levels Human-induced condensation, corrosion Widespread and 13.Widespread but Isolated and very Pristine high levels low levels low levels Cultural Biota Hydrology Water quality 14. Pesticides and herbicides >66% 34–66% 1–33% None (Surface (% areas applying)practices) Industrial and petroleum spills 15.>20 industries or 10–19 industries or 1–9 industries or None or dumping (number and type) severe risk of spills high risk of spills moderateriskofspills Water quality 16. Occurrences of algal blooms (% of >66% 34–66% 1–33% 0 (springs) sensitive areas due to eutrophication) Water 17. Changes in water table >35 15 <5 Only natural quantity (decline in meters) variability Changes in cave drip waters 18.Total cessation Longdryspells(not Slight reduction No change seasonally related) Vegetation 19. Vegetation removal (% of total) >66% 34–66% 1–33% 0 disturbance Subsurface 20. Species richness in caves (% decline) >50% 20–49% 1–19% 0 biota, cave Population density in caves (% decline) 21.>50% 20–49% 1–19% 0 Subsurface 22. Groundwater species richness >50% 20–49% 1–19% 0 or increase biota, ground (% decline) in numbers water Groundwater population density 23.>50% 20–49% 1–19% 0 or increase (% decline) in numbers Human 24. Destruction/removal of historical >50% 20–49% 1–19% 0 artefacts artefacts (% taken) Stewardship 25. Regulatory protection No regulation A few weak Statutes in place Region fully of Bela krajina regulations but with loopholes protected Enforcement of regulations 26.Widespread No enforcement, Some infrequent Strong destruction, but little damage enforcement enforcement no enforcement done Public education 27.None, public None, public Attempts through Well-funded govern-hostility indifference NGOs ment programs Bela krajina – Sustainability in a karst landscape Building 28. Building of roads Major highways Sometwolaneroads Somecountrylanes Minor tracks infrastructure Building on karst features 29.Large cities Towns SmallruralsettlementsNo development Construction within caves 30.Major modification Major tourist cave Cave trail marked Pristine 2.2.2 Land use analyses As stated by Cousins (2001), land use maps corresponding to different time periods make it pos­sibletoobservethechangesbetweenlandusecategories,andtoanalysethelandusehistoryofaspecific site.Theanalysesoflandscapechangearethusbasedonavarietyofsources,includinghistoricalmaps, cadastralmaps,archivaldataanddataacquiredinthefield.Thesesources(archiveandfield-mapping) arepartofalongtraditionofstudyinglandscapesasculturalconstructions(Bloemersetal.2010;Ribeiro, Ellis Burnet and Torkar 2013; Gabrovec, Bicík and Komac 2019). The basis of these analyses was the delineation of land use units, from four data sources: the Franziscean Land Cadastre (1824), Revised Land Cadastre (1877), Agricultural Map (1987) and field-mapping (2012). The historical maps utilised in this study were produced during a 200-year period using different cartographical and land surveying techniques. The quality of these maps is related to their original purpose. TheFranzisceanLandCadastrebecameafoundationfortoday’slandtaxsystem.Theoriginalland cadastral maps were made to a scale of 1:2880 (Kacicnik Gabric 2000; Dobernik 2002). The scanned sheetsoftheFranzisceanLandCadastreinJpegformatwereacquiredfromtheArchivesoftheRepublic of Slovenia. In 1848 the feudal system was abolished, and due to this the relationship between ownership and taxationchanged.Additionally,manyspatialchangesappeared(newinfrastructureandotherspaceinter­ventions). Thus the Franziscean Land Cadastre was no longer appropriate and a new taxation survey was needed (Serucnik 2009). Between 1869 and 1887 a revision of the cadastre was performed with updatedlandusedata.ThissurveyisreferredtoastheRevisedLandCadastre(KacicnikGabric2000). The scanned sheets of the Revised Land Cadastre in Jpeg format were also acquired from the Archives of the Republic of Slovenia. TheAgriculturalMap(hereinafter,Agrokarta),amapofagrarianlandusefrom1987emergedfrom the need for qualitative evaluation of the productive capacity of agricultural land. The Agrokarta was prepared from 1986 until 1989, based on land cadastre maps (P. B. 1987). Agrokarta map sheets were created to a scale of 1:5000. Data for the contemporary land use (2012) was acquired through field-mapping. Field-mapping is considered as an accurate method based on field work using cartographic methods, and allows for theobtainingofasmuchinformationaspossibleabouttheconditionandstructureofthehabitattypes in the area (Habitatni tipi Slovenije 2004). Fieldwork aiming to map the habitat types presented in the casestudieswasperformedin2011and2012.Thehabitatmappingfollowedtheinstructionsdescribed by Kacicnik Jancar (2011). Ortophotoswere the basis for the field-mapping, done at a scale of 1:3000. To determine the habitat type the manual Habitatni tipi Slovenije (2011) was used. At the end of the process the field maps were digitised in ArcGIS. ThehistoricalmapssuchastheFranzisceanLandCadastral,RevisedLandCadastralandAgrokarta were first scanned (except for Franziscean Land Cadastral map sheets that were previously acquired in digital format), georeferenced (Figure 5) and converted to vector format to be further analysed. In order to estimate the accuracy of the historical maps, several control points were chosen from these maps,correspondingtolocationsidentifiedindigitalorthophotosfrom2009(DOF2009)aquiredfrom the Surveying and Mapping Authority of the Republic of Slovenia, using ArcGIS software. The trans­formationmethodselectedwasthe1st OrderPolynomial(affine),whichisusuallyusedfortransformation betweentwoprojectionswheregreatdistortionisnotpresent(Podobnikar2009),accordingtothemethod­ologicalstepsdescribedbyPetekandFridl(2004).Whentheresultsprovedtobeunsatisfactory,ambiguous control points were removed, new control points were chosen and the transformation was repeated (Cousins 2001). Possibledistortionsinthehistoricalmapswerevisuallycorrected,assuggestedbyBenderetal.(2005). Each historical dataset was handled in a separate layer in the Geographic Information System (GIS). Inordertomakecomparisonsovertime,mapshadtobethematicallygeneralised(Ribeiro,EllisBurnet and Torkar 2013). Table 4 shows how the land use categories were presented in the data sources used. Given the limited amount of data in digital form and the time consuming nature of acquiring and handling the data, we have limited the in-depth part of this study to two case studies corresponding to the settlements of Adlešici and Bojanci (see subchapter 3.2). These landscapes have been shaped by different processes (natural and cultural) and tounderstand them weneed toanalysetheir history and investigate the consequences of past human activities and their influence in these two case studies. The analyses were carried out in two steps. The first step was to create land use maps that are geo­metrically correct and thematically comparable (Cousins 2001). The second step was to analyse the landscapechanges(throughlandusechanges),landscapestabilityandtransitionsoflandusecategories over time for both case studies. The basis for these analyses is the delineation of land use units, as land use is the main object of human impact (Uuemaa et al. 2011). In general, the various maps used in this study are comparable, but they are not identical because they have been created for different purpos­esandthemappingmethodologyusedwasalsodifferent,thereforethelandusecategoriesvaryamong them. In the analysis we included data from each of the available years (1824, 1877, 1987 and 2012). As the data from 1987 (Agrokarta) didnot have information for meadows and pastures individually, butonlyaclassofgrasslands(includingmeadowsandpastures),weconsideredmeadowsandpastures as only one land use category (grasslands), and this also applies to the other three datasets (1824, 1877 and2012). Andso,wehaveusedeightlandusecategories:cultivatedfield,garden,vineyard,grassland, overgrown, forest, inland water and built-up area. As the raw data from 1877 does not provide infor­mation about overgrown areas, we excluded this information from further analysis. Figure 5: Franziscean Land Cadastral maps georeferenced for the settlement of Adlešici (the red line represents the territorial border of the settlement). Table 4: Legend keys of the data sources used. Franziscean Land Revised Land Agrokarta Field-mapping Cadastre (1824) Cadastre (1877) (1987) (2012) *Data among different layers is not comparable. The elaboration of the landscape change maps for the analysis was constructed by the successive overlaying of the various temporal spatial data layers. In such a way it is possible to visualise changes betweenlayers.Theanalysisofthetrajectoriesofchangeandlandscapestability,basedonlandusedynam­ics, was doneby the so-called ‘stability mapping’ approach. This approach identifies those areas which have been most prone to land use change and is based on the calculation of three indices: ‘Turnover’, ‘Diversity’and‘Similarity’,whicharecombinedinordertoderivethechangedtrajectoryclasses:‘Stable’, ‘Quasi-stable’, ‘Stepped’, ‘Cyclical’, ‘Dynamic’ and ‘No constant trend’ (represented as NCT in the fig-ures).‘Turnover’recordsthenumberofchangeswhichoccurredbetweenadjacentpairsofyears.‘Diversity’ representsthenumberofdifferentlandusecategoriesrecordedfortheusedtimeperiods.And,‘Similarity’ givesusinformationaboutthedominanceofeachlandusecategorythroughthetimeperiod(Swetnam 2007; Skokanóva 2009; Ribeiro, Ellis Burnet and Torkar 2013). The ‘Stable class’ records areas where no changes occurred, i.e. records of the same land use category in each of the time periods used in the analysis.The‘Quasi-stableclass’presentsonlyonechangeamongonedominantlandusecategory.The ‘Stepped class’ indicates areas where only one change was recorded between two dominant land cate­gories. The ‘Cyclical class’ indicates frequent change between two land use categories. Frequent changeamong three categories is classified as the ‘Dynamic class’. The ‘NCT class’ means that land use categories changed several times and this change has been variable (Swetnam 2007; Skokanóva 2009). FID shape code 1824 code 1877 code 1987 code 2012 0 Polygon 1 1 7 6 1 Polygon 1 1 6 5 2 Polygon 1 1 6 4 3 Polygon 1 1 6 6 4 Polygon 1 1 6 6 5 Polygon 1 1 7 4 6 Polygon 1 1 7 6 7 Polygon 1 1 7 6 8 Polygon 4 4 7 6 9 Polygon 4 4 7 4 10 Polygon 4 4 7 6 11 Polygon 4 4 6 4 12 Polygon 4 4 7 4 13 Polygon 4 4 7 6 14 Polygon 1 1 6 5 15 Polygon 1 1 6 4 16 Polygon 1 1 6 6 17 Polygon 1 1 7 4 18 Polygon 4 4 6 4 19 Polygon 4 4 6 1 20 Polygon 4 4 7 4 21 Polygon 4 4 7 1 22 Polygon 4 4 7 6 23 Polygon 1 1 6 5 24 Polygon 1 1 6 4 25 Polygon 1 1 6 1 Figure 6: Attribute table of the layers from the operation ‘Intersect’. Patterns of landscapechanges andlandscapestability weremappedandanalysedusingArcGIS 10.We coded the land use categories of all data layers from 1 to 8 (see Table 5). Table 5: Coded land use categories. Land use category Code Cultivated field 1 Garden 2 Vineyard Grassland 3 4 Overgrown Forest 5 6 Inland water 7 Built-up area 8 Tocalculatelandusechangetrajectories,thelayersrepresentingdifferenttimeperiodsweregrouped into one using an ‘Intersect’ operation (Skokanóva 2010). ‘Code_1824’ represents the codes attributed to the land use categories for the year 1824, ‘code_1877’ shows the codes attributed to the land use cat­egories for the year 1877, ‘code_1987’ exhibits the codes attributed to the land use categories for the year 1987, and the ‘code_2012’ represents the land use codes for the year 2012 (Figure 6). Weaddedcolumnsfortheattributes‘Turnover’,‘Diversity’,‘Similarity’and‘Class’totheattributetable resultingfromthe‘Intersect’operation.Adetaileddescriptionofthecalculationoftheseattributesisasfollows: 1. Calculation of the indices ‘Turnover’: Wecalculatedthedifferencesamongthelandusecategoriesbetweentheadjacenttimeperiodswiththe help of a ‘Field calculator’ operation (e.g., [code_1877] – [code_1824] expresses the differences among landusecategoriesbetweentheyears1824and1877).Attributesrepresentingthesedifferenceswerenamed ‘1877_1824’,‘1987_1877’ and ‘2012_1987’.Theresultsfromthisoperationvaryfrom0,whennochange betweenthetwotimeperiodswasrecorded,topositiveornegativevaluesaccordingtothecodesattributed tothelandusecategories.Weselectedrecordswithpositiveornegativevalues(usingthecommand‘Select byattributes’:1877_1824<0OR1877_1824>1)andattributedthemavalueof1,meaningthatthoserecords perceived changes between two time periods. This procedure was repeated for all attributes describing differences between adjacent time periods. To calculate ‘Turnover’ we summarised values from these attributes usingthe ‘Fieldcalculator’ operation(Skokanóva2010),accordingtothefollowing equation: Turnover = [1877_1824] + [1987_1877] + [2012_1987] To calculate the frequency of each land use category we added a special attribute for each land use cat­egory, as such P_1, P_2, P_3, etc. (where 1, 2, 3…represent the codes given to the different land use categories), and we calculated the frequency of each land use category in each attribute by using the ‘Field calculator’ operation with the following script (example for the calculation of the frequency of land use category 1) (Skokanóva 2010): Dim hh hh = 0 if [code_1824] = 1 then hh = hh + 1 if [code_1877] = 1 then hh = hh + 1 if [code_1987] = 1 then hh = hh + 1 if [code_2012] = 1 then hh = hh + 1 and added hh in the last row. Where hh represents the frequency of each land use category and [code_1824] represents the codes attributed to the land use categories for the year 1824. 2. Calculation of the indices ‘Diversity’: Forthecalculationof‘Diversity’weusedthefollowingscriptinthe‘Fieldcalculator’(Skokanóva2010): Dim hh hh = 0 if [P_1] > 0 then hh = hh + 1 if [P_2] > 0 then hh = hh + 1 if [P_3] > 0 then hh = hh + 1 if [P_4] > 0 then hh = hh + 1 if [P_5] > 0 then hh = hh + 1 if [P_6] > 0 then hh = hh + 1 if [P_7] > 0 then hh = hh + 1 if [P_8] > 0 then hh = hh + 1 and added hh in the last row. Where [P_1] represents the frequency of land use category 1, i.e. cultivated fields. 3. Calculation of the indices ‘Similarity’: As‘Similarity’expressesthedominanceofthegivenlandusecategorywecalculatedthemaximumfre­quency for each land use category by using the ‘Select by attributes’ operation, and inserted the corresponding value (using the ‘Field calculator’ operation) into the attribute ‘Similarity’ (Skokanóva 2010).Theselectiongoesfromthelowestvalue(1,whenthelandusecategoryappearsonceinthestud­ied period) to the highest values (4, as we have used 4 data layers). The ‘Select by attributes’ command for the frequency 1 is given by: (P_1=1) or (P_2=1) or (P_3=1) or (P_4=1) or (P_5=1) or (P_6=1) or (P_7=1) or (P_8=1) 4. Calculation of the trajectories of land use change to determine landscape stability: The trajectories of land use change (in the attribute ‘Class’) are determined by the combination of the threeaforementionedindicesusingthe‘Selectbyattributes’command(Skokanóva2010).Differentcom­binations of the indices result in different classes of trajectory of change (Table 6) which are the basis of classifying the landscape stability. Table 6: Combination of the three spatial indices used in order to derive the class of trajectory of change for the four time periods. Turnover Diversity Similarity Class Example 0 1 4 Stable 1111 1, 2 1 2, 3 3 2, 3 2 2 2 4 3 3 2 2 1 2 Quasi-stable Stepped Cyclical Dynamic NCT 1112, 1211 1122 1221, 1212 1245 1123 After this, the landscape stability was mapped for both case studies. 5. Calculation of land use changes among land use categories: Inordertovisualisethelandusechangesamonglandusecategories,weperformedthefollowingsteps in ArcGIS: • Created a feature class containing the polygons generated from areas enclosed by input data from 1824, 1877, 1987 and 2012 (Data management tools Feature Feature to polygon); • Added a field ‘Area’ into the attribute table of the created feature class, where the area (m2) of each polygon was calculated; • Sliverpolygons(polygonswithanarealessthan1m2)wereeliminatedbymergingthemwith neighbouring polygons that had the largest area or the longest shared border (Data management tools Generalisation Eliminate); • Created a feature class containing points generated from the representative locations of the feature class created in step 3; • Spatiallyjoinedtheinformationaboutlandusefromeachdatalayer,tothefeatureclasswiththepoints, one at a time (Analysis tools Overlay Spatial join) resulting in a new feature class; • Tothefeatureclasscreatedinstep4,weaddedthefieldsfromthefeatureclasscreatedinstep5which contained information on land use for the years 1824, 1877, 1987 and 2012 (Data management tools Joins Join field). So in this new feature class, we got points of information about the four time periods. The dataset was handled in the NodeXL Basic Excel Template 2014, an open-source template for Microsoft® Excel® that displays and analyses network graphs created from edge and vertex lists stored in an Excel workbook (Smith et al. 2010) (Figures 37 and 38). 2.2.3 Quantitative and qualitative analyses of the landscape features 2.2.3.1 Sustainable development indicators Data for sustainable development indicators used for the quantitative analysis of the influence of the landscape features on sustainable development was acquired from different sources: the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia, the Institute of the Republic of Slovenia for Nature Conservation, theMinistryofAgriculture,ForestryandFood,theSlovenianEnvironmentalAgencyandpreviousstud­iesthathavecollectedinformationforsomeindicators.Thedataacquiredvarybetween2010and2016, which was the last data available at the time of this research. Inordertoquantitativelyanalysetheinfluenceofthelandscapefeaturesonthesustainabledevelop­mentofBelakrajina,weusedasimilarapproachintroducedbyFilepnéKovácsetal.(2015).Accordingly, landscapefunctionanalysisisausefultoolforthestudyofruralregions,asitexploreslandscaperesources, potential,andlimitationsofthepresentstateoftheregions.Wedividedthisapproachintofourmainsteps: 1. Selection of sustainable development indicators In order to measure the sustainable development of Bela krajina, we have used a combined set of indicatorsfromdifferentstudiesdoneinSlovenia(e.g.,Ravbar2014;VintarMally2018)ascanbeseen in Table 15, consisting in a balanced way of the three main dimensions of sustainable development: environmental,economicandsocial. Ravbar(2014) andVintarMally (2018) were the mainreferences for the selection of indicators as they present the most up to date indicators used in the assessment of regionaldevelopment.Otherrecentstudiesontheassessmentofwell-beinginSlovenia(Rovan,Malešic andBregar2009;KazalnikiblaginjevSloveniji2015)werealsotakenintoaccount,aswell-beingiscon­sideredtobeaveryimportantaspectforsustainabledevelopment.Withtheuseofsustainabledevelopment indicators,VintarMally(2018)analysedthecurrentconditionsandtrendsintheSlovenianregionsand assessed how much the region was approaching or drifting away from sustainable development goals. However,thisanalysiswasdoneatthelevelofstatisticalregions,whichwebelieveisnotthemostappro­priate for our case as the state of the Dolenjska statistical region (where Bela krajina is situated) is not representative of the whole statistical region. As Bela krajina is a marginal region within the Dolenjska statistical region, we contend that an analysis for Bela krajina itself is needed. Ravbar (2014) tried to identify development potentials, at the municipality level, as key factors on the basis of demographic strength, well-being and the social situation, the labour market, transport and geographical accessi­bility, and competitiveness and innovation. The main drawback of this study is that it does not include environmental indicators. Consequently, for the purpose of this study, and to have a balance between economic, environmental and social indicators, we have selected economic and social indicators from Ravbar (2014), and environmental indicators from Vintar Mally (2018). However, the final selection of indicators to be used at the municipal level was considerably influenced by the availability of data, which is lower than that for statistical regions and the national level. 2. Measuring the sustainable development of the three municipalities using the selected sustainable development indicators Theselectedsustainabledevelopmentindicatorswerecollectedforthethreemunicipalities,forthe average of the whole of Bela krajina and the average of the whole of Slovenia. The average for Bela kra­jinawascalculatedforthecomparisonofthethreemunicipalities.Theanalysisoftheseindicatorsallowed a description of the present state of the three municipalities and the Bela krajina region. For the com-parisonofthestudyregionwiththenationallevel,weusedthesameindicatorsandidentifiedtherelative ‘position’ of Bela krajina in relation to the whole country. A rating was assigned to the values of each indicator regarding their contribution to sustainable development. We calculated the mean value of theindicatorsrankedaccordingtotheme,andthenbythedomainofsustainabledevelopment. Finally, we calculated the final sum of the values to get an indication of the sustainable development for each municipalityandcompareditamongeachmunicipalityaswellaswiththenationalaverage. Threerat­ings were possible for each indicator: 1 for a positive contribution to sustainable development, –1 for a negative impact on sustainable development, and zero if the scores equal the average of Bela krajina. 3. The creation of a model matrix of different landscape types reflecting their population retention capacity in the future The model matrix of different landscape types and its population retention capacity was based on themodelproposedbyFilepnéKovácsetal.(2015).Accordingtotherelationsbetweenthethreedimen­sions,representedbysustainabledevelopmentindicators,landscapetypeswereidentifiedandscenarios regardingthepopulationretentioncapacityweredescribed.Thethreedimensionsareratedaslow,medi­um and high according to their contribution to sustainable development as evaluated in step 2. ‘Low’ means that more than half of the indicators were rated below the average, whilst ‘medium’ means that halfoftheindicatorswerenegativelyratedandtheotherhalfpositivelyrated.A‘high’scalemeansthat more than half of the indicators used to assess the domain are positively rated. This model matrix was createdinordertobespecifictokarstareasbutalsogeneralenoughtobeappliedinotherkarstregions. The main goal of this matrix was to identify whether a certain region (in our case the municipalities) is being managed in a sustainable manner. Here we only took into consideration rural landscapes, and although a range of other landscape types exist, they are not relevant for this study. 4. Placing the three municipalities in the model matrix Weidentifiedcharacteristiclandscapefeatureswithinthemunicipalities,andestimatedthelong-term populationretentioncapacityforeachofthembasedonthescenariosdescribedinthemodelmatrix(step3). 5. Creating future scenarios for Bela krajina A ‘scenario’ can be defined »as a description of the current situation, of a possible or desirable future state as well as a series of events that could lead from the current state of affairs to this future state« (VeeneklaasandVandenBerg1995,11).Therearetwotypesofscenarios:exploratory(projective)and normative(prospective).Exploratoryscenariosbeginwiththepresentasthestartingpoint,andmovefor­wardtothefuture.Normativescenariosstartwithapreliminaryviewofapossibleordesirablefuturethat goesbacktothepresentsituation(Schoonenboom1995).Thebasicapproachusedinourstudymightnot perfectlyfiteitherofthesetwotypes;itisinfactamixtureofboth,orratherapredictionwhichdescribes themostprobablefuturethatcanbeexpected.Therefore,itmaynotfollowtheframeworkofscenariosused in different disciplines such as landscape ecology (e.g., Gantar and Golobic 2015). However, the created scenariostakeintoaccountthecurrentstateofthelandscapeandprojecttheirpotentialfuturestate.Based onthemodelmatrixofdifferentlandscapetypesattributedtoeachofthethreemunicipalities(step4)we thus created future scenarios for Bela krajina, which show how the cultural landscape will be and conse­quentlyitscontinueddevelopmentifthecurrenttrendscontinue.Thequestionnaireforthequalitativeanalysis ofthelandscapefeaturesforsustainabledevelopmentincludedaquestion(seesubchapter2.2.3.2)toexplore whattherespondentswantforthefutureoftheregioninthenext15years. Theideabehindthiswasthat theiranswerscouldbeusedasguidelinesforthecreationoffuturescenariosforthestudyregion. 2.2.3.2 Structured interviews Datagatheringonthequalitativeanalysisofthelandscapefeaturesforsustainabledevelopmentwas based on interviews. We conducted structured interviews with a total of 32 respondents, encompass­ing farmers, resident non-farmers, and professionals of nature protection, tourism and regional development. The interviews were carried out by these local stakeholders as they represent inter-link­ages with land management on one side and with the endowment for socio-economic welfare on the other.Somerespondentswereselectedaccordingtotheirparticularareaofexpertiseandothersthrough snowballsampling. Thismeansthatsomerespondentswerenominatedthroughtheirsocialnetworks, andon the basis of their potential contribution to the study. Potential respondents were contacted via telephone in advance, and the basic research objectives were outlined and interviews were agreed at a scheduled date. Interviews were carried out in June and July 2016. As we selected structured inter­views, the interviewer guided the conversation and respondents answered the questions. We used open-ended questions; this means that the respondents formulated their own answers (Muršic 2011). Therespondents’profilesandtheirresidencelocationsinthemunicipalitiesarepresentedinTable 7. Three different types of questionnaires were prepared according to the target stakeholder: one typeof Table 7: Respondents’ profile and their residence location in the municipalities. Pilot area Questionnaire A Questionnaire B Questionnaire C Resident non-farmers Farmers Professionals of nature protection Tourism professionals Representatives oflocalgovernments Crnomelj JJ JG VŠ JK BG NŠ TJ BR AK LB VV GA VK Metlika MB MM JV MP – MiP MK MaP JN IŠ Semic DM AP AK PM SM BP MI SŽ – BJ MK Table 8: List of all the questions from the interviews and target stakeholder to whom the questions were addressed. Questions Farmers Resident non-farmers Professionals of natureprotectionTourism professionalsRepresentatives of local governments 1. What does the landscape provide you with?      2. What makes this landscape attractive?      3. Does the landscape contribute to your well-being? How?      4. What are the characteristics of this landscape that distinguish      this place from other landscapes? 5. Has the landscape changed from the past until now? Has it      changed for better or worse, how and why? 6. What are the main factors that influence landscape change?      7. What role do you play in landscape management?      8. What do you consider to be a valuable landscape?      9. Do you think that agricultural activities affect the appearance      of this landscape? 10. Do you recognise the overgrowth of the agricultural landscape?      11. Do the karst features of the landscape influence your activities?      12. Do you think that the karst characteristics of this landscape      influence local development? 13. Do you think that nature protection influences your activities?      14. Do you think that nature protection influences local      development? 15. In your opinion is this landscape developed? Why?      16. What is the goal of the regional development process?      17. What problems have you encountered in reaching this goal?      18. Do you think that it is important to involve local stakeholders      in decision-making processes on landscape management? 19. Are local stakeholders involved in the decision-making      processes on landscape practices or management? How? 20. Do you see the increase in self-sufficiency in food* as an      employment opportunity for rural development? 21. How do you see this landscape in 2030?      * »The concept of food self-sufficiency is generally taken to mean the extent to which a country can satisfy its food needs from its own domestic production« (Implications of economic policy…1999). questionnaire was prepared for farmers and resident non-farmers; another type of questionnaire was prepared for tourism professionals and professionals of nature protection (including NGOs and man­agers of protected areas), and a third type of questionnaire was designed for representatives of local governments (municipal government representatives) (Table 7). Some questions were the same in all three questionnaires, whilst others differed among them (Table 8). The process started with the selection of potential respondents and was then conducted through snowballing. With 32 interviews we got a noticeable repetition of items mentioned by respondents, although we are aware that the answers from the interviews carried out might not represent the views of all locals in the whole region. Most interviews were conducted at the respondent’s home or place of work. After a brief introduction of the interviewer and the research topic, people were asked between 10 to 14 questions, depending on the target stakeholder. Each respondent was allocated a 2-hour visit, althoughinterviewsrangedfrom10minutestomorethan60minutesinlength,whilstthelongestvisit lasted for four hours, where the respondent showed us the landscape where he lived and worked. Interviews were recorded, with the permission of the respondent and transcribed later. Bieling et al. (2014)performedsimilarresearchusingasimilarapproach.InterviewsweredoneinSlovenelanguage. The transcripts provide an extensive overview of the collected views and perspectives of a diverse groupoflocalstakeholders and providea useful tool for comparison,eitheramong different groupsof stakeholdersoramongdifferentstudyareas.Inthisstudythetranscriptionsoftheinterviewsrepresent a collection of views and discussions which the local stakeholders involved in landscape management hold toward regional development and functions provided by the landscape. As the transcripts result­ed in an enormous amount of qualitative data, there was a need for separation and sorting of the text, andthereforesegmentsoftextwereconciselycoded.Thecodingallowsfororganisationandsummarising of the qualitative data for further analysis (MacDonald et al. 2013). Thus the codes were analysed and used to identify key ideas, and were later used to calculate sum scores for each answer given. 3 Results 3.1 Karst Disturbance Index 1. Quarrying/mining: The locations of some disused quarries were identified first from a map of quarrying and mining activities in Bela krajina from 1984 (Bukovac et al. 1984) and then these locations were verified with Lidardatafrom2014andDOFfrom2014/2015. Wepreparedvisualisationsofthelocationsofdisused quarries, as well as their appearance in the current landscape (Figures 7 to 19). The size of non-active quarries was measured with the help of GIS. All the identified quarrying and mining activities in the region are considered to be of small size and are located in: • Crnomelj Municipality: 1) Hrast pri Vinici I – active quarry of dolomite, approximate size 0.2 ha; 2) Hrast pri Vinici II – active quarry of dolomite, approximate size 3.2 ha; 3) Suhor pri Vinici – active quarry of limestone, approximate size 13.5 ha; 4) Kanižarica – a large abandoned coal mine of lignite, approximate size 80 ha; 5) Veliki Nerajec (Figure 7) – disused quarry of dolomite, approximate size 2.6 ha; 6) Mali Nerajec (Figure 8) – disused quarry of dolomite, approximate size 1.9 ha; 7) Stari trg (Figures 9 and 10) – disused quarry of dolomite, approximate size 0.6 ha; 8) Golek (Figure 11) – disused quarry of lignite, approximate size 1.1 ha; 9) Crnomelj (Figure 12) – disused quarry of limestone, approximate size 1.3 ha; 10) Dragovanja vas (Figure 13) – disused quarry of limestone, approximate size 0.7 ha; Figure 7: Disused quarry located in the Veliki Nerajec settlement. On the left the identification on the topographic map from 1996, in the centre its visualisation from Lidar data from 2014, and on the right how the abandoned location looks on DOF from 2014/2015 (Atlas okolja 2016). Figure 8: Disused quarry located in the Mali Nerajec settlement. On the left the identification on the topographic map from 1971, in the centre its visualisation from Lidar data from 2014, and on the right how the abandoned location looks on DOF from 2014/2015 (Atlas okolja 2016). Figure 9: Disused quarry located in the Stari trg settlement. On the left the identification on the topo­graphic map from 1996, in the centre its visualisation from Lidar data from 2014, and on the right how the abandoned location looks on DOF from 2014/2015 (Atlas okolja 2016). • Metlika Municipality: 11) Bereca vas – active quarry of dolomite, approximate size 2.4 ha; 12) Kucar (Figure 14) – disused quarry of limestone, approximate size 1.2 ha; 13) Gornja Lokvica (Figure 15) – disused quarry of dolomite, approximate size 1.5 ha; • Semic Municipality: 14) Brezovica pri Crmošnjicah – active quarry of dolomite, approximate size 3.8 ha; 15) Vrcice – active quarry of dolomite, approximate size 3.3 ha; 16) Topli vrh – active quarry of dolomite, approximate size 2.1 ha; 17) Gradnik (Figure 16) – disused quarry of limestone, approximate size 0.1 ha; 18) Ribnik (Figure 17) – disused quarry of dolomite, approximate size 0.3 ha; 19) Srednja Gora (Figure 18) – disused quarry of dolomite, approximate size 0.2 ha; 20) Srednja vas (Figure 19) – disused quarry of limestone, approximate size 0.3 ha. A rating of 3 was assigned to this indicator for the Crnomelj Municipality where ten sites of quar­rying/mining are located, with a large coal mine. There are seven small sites of quarrying within the Semic Municipality; therefore, we attributeda rating of 2 to this indicator. In the Metlika Municipality there are three small scale quarries, so we attributed a rating of 1 (Table 11). 2. Surface flooding (artificial surfaces): Fromobservationsofthemap(Figure20),weconcludedthattherewasnocatastrophicorfrequent flooding in Bela krajina, only some occasional flooding. Thus this indicator is 0 in all three munici­palities (Table 11). Figure 20: Flood hazard maps for rare floods. p (p. 50) 3. Storm water drainage: Fromtheclassificationofregisteredcaves,weidentifiedeightponorswithinthestudyregion(Kataster jam2016). However,itisimportanttonotethatallwaterbodiesinthestudyregionareofsmallsizeand none ofthese eightponors haveahigh disturbanceimpact,thus the maximumratingis 2(Table11). 1) Požiralnik Bajer (Cave Registry Number (hereinafter, CRN) 8176, Semic Municipality): This cave is located close to a railway line and main road, thus it could potentially contribute to water pollu­tion; we assigned a rating of 2. 2) Gadina(CRN235,CrnomeljMunicipality):Thisponorcouldhaveapotentiallynegativeeffectonground­waterasitislocateddirectlybeneaththesettlement,southwestofCrnomelj;itwasratedwith2. 3) Džud (CRN 3341, Crnomelj Municipality): Although it is considered as a ponor, it does not offer any impact on groundwater, as there are no roads or any other urban infrastructure in its vicinity. 4) JamavToplicicah(CRN1809,SemicMunicipality):Theonlyroadinthevicinityofthiscaveisafor-est path, therefore its impact is considered to be 0. 5) Vucji dol 5 (CRN 10789, Crnomelj Municipality): Its impact for storm water drainage is null as it is located in the middle of a forest and there is no urban infrastructure nearby. 6) Mlinška jama (CRN 850, Metlika Municipality; Figure 21): This cave is a permanent ponor with arelativelylargecatchmentarea,anditislocatedclosetoaroadwhichconnectsthenearbyvillages, therefore it was rated with 2. 7) Pecenevka(CRN851,MetlikaMunicipality):WhenthereisalotofwaterandMlinškajamaisflood-ed, the water might run into this ponor, therefore its impact was considered to be 1. 8) Požiralnik pri Lešcah (CRN 864, Metlika Municipality): The catchment area of the stream is large, this ponor is located close to main roads and populated areas; it works as a ponor only temporar­ily, thus its potential impact is 2. 4. Infilling caves: Bela krajina has 622 registered caves (Kataster jam 2016). Almost 19% (118) of Bela krajina’s caves are considered degraded (destroyed and polluted), of these 1.4% are destroyed and 17.5% polluted. 70 degradedcavesarelocatedwithintheCrnomeljMunicipality,15arelocatedintheMetlikaMunicipality (e.g., Figure 22) and 33 degraded caves within the Semic Municipality. In all three municipalities the percentageofdegradedcavesareincludedonascaleof1–33%,sothisindicatorwasrated1forallthree of them (Table 11). 5. Illegal waste dumping: We assumed that data about the number and size of known, active, illegal landfills is currently the same as it was for the year 2012 as no new data on illegal dumping sites exists. Crnomelj has 98 illegal landfills, which cover a total of 20,755m2, corresponding to 0.006% of the Crnomelj Municipality. Metlika has 32 illegal landfills, covering 2870m2 or 0.003% of the municipal­ity territory. In Semic, 57 illegal dumps were identified, covering a total of 16,834m2 (Register divjih odlagališc 2013) or 0.011% of the municipality territory. From these numbers we assigned a score of 1 to Crnomelj and Metlika, and 2 to Semic, as this municipality has a comparatively higher number of areas affected by waste disposal than the other two municipalities (Table 11). In reality this number could be higher than reported as there could be many more illegal landfills (e.g., Figure 23) that have not yet been identified/mapped. However, these numbers are a good estimate for the environmental impact that this activity might have in the study region. 6. Erosion: Figures24,25and26showtheresultsfromthecalculationoferosionforcultivatedareasinCrnomelj, MetlikaandSemic,respectively.Morethan38%ofthecultivatedareaswithintheCrnomeljMunicipality (Figure 24) present a severe erosion risk due to their slope (shown in red). Only around 8% are con-sideredtohavealowerosionrisk(showningreen)andslightlymorethan25%amoderateerosionrisk (showninyellow).Approximatelythesamepercentageoftheareahasahigherosionrisk(showninorange). Approximately 42% of the cultivated areas within the Metlika Municipality (Figure 25) are locat­ed in areas considered to have a severe erosion risk (shown in red), while 12% have a low erosion risk (shown in green). 25% of the cultivated areas have a moderate erosion risk (shown in yellow) and 21% a high erosion risk (shown in orange). These values are very similar to the ones for Crnomelj Municipality, so both municipalities were assigned a high erosion risk (considering that around 40% of cultivated areas present a severe erosion risk) (Table 11). According to erosion indicators, Semic is the most affected municipality in the region (Figure 26), withalmost75%ofthecultivatedareaslocatedinplaceswithasevereerosionrisk(showninred).Only slightlymorethan1%havealowerosionrisk(showningreen),around8%moderateerosionrisk(shown in yellow) and the rest have a high erosion risk (shown in orange). Therefore, this municipality was assigned a rating 3 (Table 11). 7. Compaction due to livestock or humans: The proportion of land use activities causing soil compaction (in pastures and built-up areas) is quite similar in all three municipalities, being around 2.9% in Crnomelj, 4.6% in Metlika and 2.2% in Semic.Allthreemunicipalitieshaveaproportionofpasturesandurbaninfrastructurebetween1–33%, therefore all of them were rated with 1 (Table 11), which corresponds to a few isolated concentrated areas of compaction due to livestock and humans. 8. Subsurface flooding (human-induced cave flooding due to surface alteration): There are no dams built in the study region. Natural flooding events occur due to high rainfall, but not due to dam sites, therefore this indicator is zero in all three municipalities (Table 11). 9. Cave formation removal or vandalism: Many of the registered caves in the study region had recently been discovered and had never been visited before; at least there was no evidence of human intervention in these newly-registered caves. Tourism through the use of caves is not a major economic activity in Bela krajina. There is one known tourist cave, Malikovec cave (CRN 2316), located in the Semic Municipality. Nevertheless,throughexaminationoftheCaveRegistry(Katasterjam2016),afewcasesofspeleothem removalwerefoundwithinallthreemunicipalities. InCrnomeljsixcaveswithremovalofspeleothemswerefound:Grdanjiskedenj(CRN831),Jurinovka(CRN1825),Lesina(CRN1811),LuknjapriŽlaniku(CRN2959),Mausarjevajama(CRN1806)andŠpirovkot(CRN1213).IntheSemicMunicipalityonly onecaveaffectedbycaveformationremovalwasidentified:KapniškajamavDrvodelniku(CRN4768). One cave with cave formation removal was also identified in Metlika, the Kopelc cave (CRN 1798). As these mentioned cases are isolated examples of removal in comparison to the total number of existent caves within the study region, this indicator was rated with 1 for all three municipalities (Table 11). 10. Mineral and sediment removal: In Slovenia, mineral and sediment removal from caves for economic reasons is prohibited (Zakon o varstvu…2004), nevertheless, from the examination of the cave records we found one case where sedimentremovalhadtakenplace,i.e.theVuzelnicacave(CRN6272),locatedinMetlikaMunicipality. Thus we assigned 1 for Metlika Municipality. The other two municipalities were considered as pris­tine regarding mineral and sediment removal (Table 11). 11. Floor sediment compaction-destruction: This indicator is zero for all three municipalities (Table 11). As only one cave can be considered as touristic(Malikoveccave)withinthestudyregion,thetrailthroughtheMalikoveccaveisnotconfined to a single small trail used by cave visitors, rather the whole cave floor was damaged or even destroyed, ascanbeseeninFigure27.However,itsimpactcanbeomittedregardingitsimportancetothemunic­ipality/region floor sediment compaction-destruction rating. 12. Desiccation: Only the Malikovec cave was taken into consideration as a touristic cave which might be affected by desiccation. AstherearenoartificialentrancesintheMalikoveccavethatinfluencethedesiccationofthe cave,thisindicatorwasassigned0forSemicMunicipality(wherethiscaveislocated),aswellasfortheother twomunicipalitiesduetotheabsenceoftouristiccaveswherethisimpactisusuallygreater(Table11). 13. Human-induced condensation, corrosion: This indicator is rated zero for all three municipalities (Table 11) for the same reasons as the four previous indicators. 14. Pesticides and herbicides: If we consider the impact of this indicator only through the proportion of cultivated fields, orchards andvineyards,theproportionoflandwhereherbicidesandpesticidesareappliedinCrnomeljis7.2%,in Metlika13.7%andinSemic1.8%.Thus,inallthreemunicipalitiesthisproportionislessthan33%andwe thereforeconsideredthesevaluestoshowlittlechemicaluseinallthreemunicipalities,andhencetheyrated as 1. However, through literature searches we discovered information about one pig farm, located in the CrnomeljMunicipality.Thispigfarmisconsideredtobeproblematicduetotheapplicationofslurry,which results in an unbearable odour (Stanje obmocij…2016). Even though there is no evidence (monitoring) of groundwater pollution, it is possible that this activity can cause groundwater pollution (this issue has beencoveredbythemedia,e.g.,Rajšek2016). ThusforCrnomeljMunicipalitythisindicatorwasrated2. 15. Industrial and petroleum spills or dumping: We summarised all wastewater treatment plants in Table 9, according to their location within the three municipalities. All existent industries were summarised in Table 10. Table 9: The location of wastewater treatment plants in the municipalities. Crnomelj Municipality Metlika Municipality Semic Municipality • Dragatuš • Griblje • Kanižarica • Radenci • Stari trg • Vojna vas • Drašici • Gradac • Krasinec • Metlika • Podzemelj • Rosalnice • Suhor • TPV Suhor • Crmošnjice • Krvavcji vrh Table 10: Industries existent in the municipalities. Crnomelj Municipality Metlika Municipality Semic Municipality • Javno podjetje komunala Crnomelj d.o.o. • Beti holding D.D. • CGP Družba za gradbeništvo, • Iskra, D.D. PE Kondenzatorji • KZ Krka z.o.o. inž., proizvodnjo in vzdrževanje • Kambic Laboratorijska • Livar D.D. Ivancna Gorica cest D.D. oprema d.o.o. • SECOP Kompresorji d.o.o. • PETROL D.D., BIOPLINARNA • Galvanizacija Jože Slanc s.p. • Kmetijska zadruga Metlika z.o.o. Crnomelj • Komunala Metlika d.o.o. With the data from Tables 9 and 10 as the basis for this indicator, Crnomelj was rated with 2 as it has11facilitiesofwastewatertreatmentandindustrythatpresentpotentialspillsanddumpingthreats. Metlika was also rated with 2 as there are 13 facilities within the municipality. Although only 4 facili­tiesarelocatedinSemic,weattributedthehighestscoretothismunicipality(Table11).Ananthropogenic disaster in the mid-1980s due to the improper handling of hazardous PCBs from the dumping of con­densers in the unprotected karst hinterland of the Krupa River has slowly been leaching PCBs into the ground,whichlaterresurfaceintheKrupaspring.Long-termmonitoringmeasurementsshowthatthe pollutionofBelakrajinawithPCBshasgraduallyreduced,buttheconcentrationintheareaoftheKrupa RiverandintheimmediatevicinityoftheIskrafactoryinSemic,andinindividualelementsofthefood chain are still high. The River Krupa is still the main source of PCB emissions into the environment through water evaporation (Plut 1996). 16. Occurrence of algal blooms: AccordingtotheMapofSensitiveAreasDuetoEutrophication,thestudyregionhasnosensitiveareas due toeutrophication, thereforethisindicatorwas assignedas0 forthethreemunicipalities (Table 11). 17. Changes in water table: Thevariabilityofwaterlevelswasnotpossibletocalculateasnationalhydrologicalmonitoringdata fromtheSlovenianEnvironmentalAgencyisnotcomplete,sothecomparisonofthesevaluesbetween different years is not possible. Hence there is a lack of data for this indicator (Table 11). 18. Changes in cave drip waters: We do not have available data for this indicator, as there are no studies on the relationship between land use activities outside caves and cave drip water in Slovenian caves; this type of monitoring has not been done in Slovenia to date. Kogovšek (1995) demonstrated that run-off water, after precipita­tion, that reached karst waters was polluted due to the proximity of a highway. However, this study did not take place in Bela krajina, and therefore a ‘Lack of Data’ was assigned to this indicator for the three municipalities (Table 11). 19. Vegetation removal: Since »Clear cutting as a way of forest management is prohibited« in Slovenia (Zakon o gozdovih 1993, Article 22), and there had been no fires in any of the three municipalities in recent times, this indicator was assigned 0 for all three municipalities (Table 11). 20. Species richness in caves: Thenumberofcave-dwellingspeciesinSloveniaisamongthehighestintheworld(Hudoklin2011; Culver et al. 2004). The study of caves and cave fauna has a long history in Slovenia (Sket 1996), dat­ing back to the 17th century with the work of Johann W. Valvasor (Valvasor 1689). The most famous cavedwelleristheproteusorolm(Proteusanguinus),anendemicamphibianofthesubterraneanwaters of the Dinaric Karst (Hudoklin 2011; Aljancic et al. 2014). In Bela krajina two subspecies of proteus canbefound,thewhiteolm(Proteusanguinusanguinus)andtheblackolm(Proteusanguinusparkelj). ThelattersubspeciesisrareandendemictoandonlyknownintheBelakrajinaregion(Hudoklin2011). As a result of this, it is included on the Slovenian Red List of endangered animal species (Sket 1992). Culveretal.(2004)studiedspeciesrichnesspatternsinSloveniancaves.Theauthorsnotedanincrease inspeciesrichnessintheregionofBelakrajinafrom1940to2000,howevercomparisonsbetweenyears are difficult as new caves and new species are constantly being discovered (Culver et al. 2004), ham­pering the monitoring process. As there are no studies of species richness available that are separated by decades for the study region, which could show some degree of disturbance, a ‘Lack of Data’ was assigned (Table 11). 21. Population density in caves: As the olm is a habitat specialist among cave fauna, it would be a suitable indicator species for the stateofsubterraneanhabitats(Hudoklin2011).Therefore,wecouldusepopulationdataforthisspecies as an indicator, as it is an umbrella species; nevertheless, at the national level, and particularly for the study region, there is no systematic monitoring of groundwater quality confined to locations of olm or other cave fauna (Hudoklin 2011), so a ‘Lack of Data’ was also assigned here for the three munici­palities (Table 11). 22. Groundwater species richness: Sloveniahasaremarkableconcentrationofgroundwaterfaunacomparedtoothercountries(Culver and Sket 2000). Studies on groundwater species in Slovenia do exist, although they do not take into consideration the temporal variation of numbers of species and these studies have not been done for the study region. Therefore, we assigned ‘Lack of Data’ (Table 11) for the same reason as the previous two indicators. 23. Groundwater population density: Although there are several studies on population diversity (e.g., Sket 1996; 1999) we were not able to find any studies that monitor the changes of groundwater population density, therefore this indi­cator was assigned with ‘Lack of Data’ due to data unavailability (Table 11). 24. Destruction/removal of historical artefacts: This indicator refers to historical artefacts being removed from their original locations. Through literature searches (e.g., Plut 2008) we found two cases located in the Crnomelj Municipality. The Sepulchral mound cemetery, Veliki Nerajec, originally had at least seven mounds, however currentlyonly two partially ploughed ones remain. In Šipek cemetery, locals have ploughed over various objects, thus ruining and dispersing them (Plut 2008). There are probably more cases of destruction or removal of historical artefacts, although only these two cases were identified. We attributed a rating 2 to Crnomelj Municipality and 0 to the other two municipalities (Table 11). 25. Regulatory protection: Although the whole region is not fully protected, all three municipalities have protected areas that directly or indirectly protect the karst environment; therefore, for all municipalities the indicator of Regulatory protection was assigned 1 (Table 11). Regulatory protection existent in the study region is as follows: • Natura 2000; • Lahinja Landscape Park; • Kolpa Landscape Park; • The Law on the Protection of Underground Caves. 26. Enforcement of regulations: Throughliteraturesearcheswewerenotabletofindanyinformationforthisindicator.Duringfield-work we noted some information boards next to protected areas and some caves. However, no additional enforcements were found, therefore we assigned 2 to all three municipalities regarding this issue (Table 11). 27. Public education: While doing this research we had contact with many people from the region, and we found that many people from Bela krajina are also active in nature protection. Several non-profit organisations relatedtonatureprotectionexist(Proteus,EkodruštvoKrupa,variouscavingclubs).TheNGOProteus was established to participate in environmental protection and to intervene in cases and procedures that are harmful to nature in Bela krajina. Caving clubs that are active in Bela krajina include Novo mestoCavingClub,KrkaCavingClubandCrnomeljCavingClub,whichorganiseannualcavingschools, speciallydesignedforstudents(Figure28). Thiseducationalprogramaimstoteachpeopleaboutkarst and karst phenomena with an emphasis on the characteristics of the Dolenjska karst; the living world of caves and faunal features of the Dolenjska karst; along with the risks to and protection of karst and theUndergroundCaveProtectionAct(JamarskiklubNovomesto2016;Zakonovarstvu…2004).These topics are also covered in some subjects included in the school curriculum where pupils learn aboutkarst features and the vulnerability of the karst environment (e.g., Križnik and Purkat 2008; Štrukelj 2011). Thus, due to the aforementioned initiatives, we attributed a rating of 1 to all three municipali­ties, as we believe more activities could take place with local inhabitants. Figure28: Presentation bytheBrežice Caving Club at anopen day at OŠ SavaKladnikaSevnica primary school, where cave explorers talked about karst and karst phenomena, and its importance for nature protection. The presentation did not take place in the study region, but the photograph is representative of such activities. 28. Building of roads: The rating for this indicator increases with the size of the roads present in the region. In Bela kra­jinatherearenohighways,onlynationalandregionalroads.ItisimportanttomentionthatinSlovenia, roads also have major impacts on the environment in winter time due to the heavy use of road salt in icyconditions(KogovšekandPetric2002).InthesummermonthstrafficinBelakrajinagreatlyincreas­es, as Bela krajina is a border region with Croatia, allowing the passage of people towards the coast. Therefore, we assigned 1 to all three municipalities, as all three are affected by roads and traffic in sim­ilar ways (Table 11). 29. Building on karst features: Thehighestratingofthisindicator(3)representsthepresenceoflargecities,butasonlytownsandvil­lagesarepresentinthethreemunicipalities,thisindicatorwasratedas2forallthreelocations(Table11). 30. Construction within caves: Althoughthereis a trail through theMalikoveccave,its impactcanbe omittedwhen compared toits importance to the municipality where it is located, therefore this indicator was assigned 0 for Crnomelj Municipalityandtheothertwomunicipalities(Table11),whereconstructionwithincavesisnotrecorded. The compilation of ratings and interpretation of values through the degree of karst disturbance for each municipality is summarised in Table 12. The results show that the karst environment of all three municipalities in Bela krajina has low disturbance. Table 11: Karst Disturbance Index ranking of individual indicators for the three municipalities. N° Indicator Crnomelj Metlika Semic 1 2 3 4 5 6 Quarrying/mining Surface flooding (artificial surfaces) Stormwater drainage (% of total stormwater funnelled into ponors) Infilling caves (% of infilled caves) Illegal waste dumping Erosion 3 0 1 1 1 2 1 0 2 1 1 2 2 0 1 1 2 3 7 8 9 Compaction due to livestock or humans Subsurface flooding (human-induced cave flooding due to surface alteration) Cave formation removal or vandalism 1 0 1 1 0 1 1 0 1 10 Mineral and sediment removal 0 1 0 11 12 Floor sediment compaction-destruction Desiccation 0 0 0 0 0 0 13 Human-induced condensation, corrosion 0 0 0 14 Pesticides and herbicides 2 1 1 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 Industrial and petroleum spills or dumping Occurrences of algal blooms Changes in water table (decline in meters) Changes in cave drip waters Vegetation removal (% of total) Species richness in caves (% decline) Population density in caves (% decline) Groundwater species richness (% decline) Groundwater population density (% decline) Destruction/removal of historical artefacts (% taken) Regulatory protection Enforcement of regulations Public education 2 0 LD* LD 0 LD LD LD LD 2 1 2 1 2 0 LD LD 0 LD LD LD LD 0 1 2 1 3 0 LD LD 0 LD LD LD LD 0 1 2 1 28 29 30 Building of roads Building on karst features Construction within caves 1 2 0 1 2 0 1 2 0 *LD = Lack of Data Table 12: Classification of karst disturbance for the three municipalities. Pilot area Rating Degree of disturbance Crnomelj Metlika Semic 0.26 0.22 0.22 Low disturbance Low disturbance Low disturbance Theevaluationofthecredibilityoftheindexwasdonethroughthe‘LackofData’rating.Aswehad LD for six indicators for the three municipalities, the LD rating was 0.2. This means that a fifth of the indicators had insufficient data to allow ratings, which equates to moderate confidence in the index. TheassessmentoflandscapeconditionsviatheKarstDisturbanceIndexshowedthatallthreemunic­ipalities were considered as low disturbance, thus we can say that the karst landscapes of Bela krajina ingeneralhavelowdisturbanceasaresultofhumanactivities.Aminordifferencewasnoticedbetween thethreemunicipalities,showingthatCrnomeljhasslightlymoredisturbancethanMetlikaandSemic. Thiscouldbeaccentuatedbecausethismunicipalityhasrecentlybeenexposedtohumanactivitieswith major impacts on the karst environment (e.g., Bio-gas plant, pig farming) or because it has been cov­ered by the media more and therefore more attention was given to such activities. ThisassessmentwasnotdoneinotherkarstregionsinSloveniatoawidercomparison.Nevertheless, based on studies describing the human impact in other karst regions (e.g., Prelovšekand Zupan Hajna 2011), we can say that other Slovenian karst regions seem to be under greater pressure (or at least on a larger scale) than the karst landscapes of Bela krajina. The application of the approach described in subchapter 2.2.1 to other karst regions would improve our knowledge of human impacts on karst as well as allowing greater comparison among regions. The first step to act against the negative impact of human activities in karst systems is to improve publicawarenessofthevulnerabilityofthesesystemstohumanpressures,whichhaveimpactsnotonly ontheenvironmentbutalsoonthehealthofthepopulationandconsequentlyonthesustainabledevel­opment of these areas. From this assessment we can ascertain that the lack of legislative provisions in Slovenia concern­ing the protection of karst systems, which take into account its specificities and vulnerability, contributes to the current situation in the study region to a certain degree. 3.2 Land use analyses: Adlešici and Bojanci case studies 3.2.1 Land use changes The maps utilised in this study were produced using different cartographical and land surveying techniques,andtheywereproducedfordifferentpurposes.Astheiroriginalpurposewasdifferent,the mapping criteria was also different, influencing the quality of these maps. For these reasons land use categoriesweredifferentlymappedinthemapsused.Datafromeachoftheavailableyears(1824,1877, 1987 and 2012) was included in the analysis. It is important to emphasise that our main objective in these analyses was to study the changes in agricultural and forested areas, and thus less attention was paid to built-up and inland water areas. Data for these two land use categories might not be compara­bleamong different sources (spatial data layers) due to different mapping criteria. For the analyses we producedamapofthelandusechanges,agraphdepictingthechangesinlandusecategoriesovertime, and a table with the coverage of land use categories (in ha) for the time periods included. Figure 29: Changes in land use categories over time for the Adlešici case study. p (p. 64) Figure 30: Changes in land use categories over time for the Bojanci case study. p (p. 65) From observation of Figure 29, major changes over time can be noted for the land use categories: cultivated fields, grasslands and forests. From observation of Figure 30, major changes over time can be noted for the land use categories: cultivated fields, grasslands, overgrown and forests. It should also be noted that in both case studies, areas mapped in 1824 as overgrown were grasslands in 1877. This suggeststhatthecategory‘overgrown’wasnotmappedatallin1877.Asmostoftheseareasweremapped as forests in 1987, it also suggests a cartographic error of this dataset (Revised Land Cadastre), as it is lesslikelythatovergrownareaswereconvertedtograsslands(1824–1877)andfromgrasslandstoforests (1877–1987). However, the period between 1877 and 1987 is long enough to allow for changes in the landscape, which due to lack of data for this period were not perceived. Cultivatedfields inAdlešici showed aslightincreasefrom 1824to 1877 but a significantreduction from1877to2012(Figure31;row2inTable13).TheareasoccupiedbygardensinAdlešiciexperienced Land use category 1824 1877 1987 2012 Cultivated field 44.23 44.89 7.67 3.48 Garden 0.32 6.32 1.01 10.02 Vineyard Grassland 4.49 68.55 8.40 73.25 3.80 74.16 2.83 46.93 Overgrown 16.06 0.00 0.93 14.35 Forest 13.67 13.59 52.04 65.37 Inland water 4.99 4.99 4.95 4.21 Built-up 5.32 6.19 13.07 10.44 fluctuationsforthetimespanstudied(Figure31;row3inTable13).VineyardsinAdlešicishowanincrease until1877andfromthenareduction(Figure31;row4inTable13).GrasslandsinAdlešicishowaslight increaseinareauntil1987,butafterthisperiodtheareawasreducedduetoanincreaseinforests(Figure 31; row 5 in Table 13). Overgrownareas in Adlešici do not appear to occur in 1877, but after this peri­odtheyincreased(Figure31;row6inTable13).TheforestareasinAdlešicislightlydecreasedfrom1824 to1877butsignificantlyexpandedfrom1877to2012(Figure31;row7inTable13).Overallofthemap series, inland waters in Adlešici appear constant with only minor variations (Figure 31; row 8 in Table 13). Built-up areas in Adlešici doubled in size from 1824 to 2012 (Figure 31; row 9 in Table 13). Cultivated fields in Bojanci showed a dramatic decrease from 1824 to 2012, although this change is more evident from 1877 to 1987 (Figure 32; row 2 in Table 14). The areas occupied by gardens expe­rienced fluctuations for the timespan studied (Figure 32; row 3 in Table 14), as in Adlešici. In Bojanci the area of vineyards is almost negligible and as with gardens, this land use category also experienced slight fluctuations from 1824 to 2012 (Figure 32; row 4 in Table 14). In 1824 grasslands dominated in Bojanci, and this area significantly increased until 1877. After this period the area was reduced due to the increase in forests (Figure 32; row 5 in Table 14). Overgrown areas in Bojanci occupied an exten­sive area in 1824; in 1877 this land use category does not appear to occur, then from 1877 to 2012 it increased,althoughtoasmallerproportionthantheinitialarea(Figure32;row6inTable14).Eventhough forest area was already quite extensive in 1824, the afforested land significantly expanded over time (Figure 32; row 7 in Table 14). In Bojanci, inland waters were represented by a negligible area in 1824 and1877,correspondingto ponds,and afterthis period theseareasdo not appear tooccur (Figure32; row8inTable14). UrbanexpansionoccurredinBojancifrom1824to1987,butafterthisperiodbuilt­upareasshowaslightreduction(Figure32;row9inTable14). Theresultsfromlandusechangesshow that the spread of forests is a general phenomenon. However, differences between the two case studies areobvious.ThistrendismuchmorepronouncedinBojanci(Figures30and32)thaninAdlešici(Figures 29and31).SimilartrendscanbeseeninothercadastralmunicipalitiesinBelakrajina-forexamplePrelokaand Žunici, where the increase in forests and decrease in cultivated fields were noted (Knific 2003). Land use category 1824 1877 1987 2012 Cultivated field 71.05 70.76 15.15 2.89 Garden 0.25 4.24 1.20 8.08 Vineyard Grassland 0.25 283.51 1.00 405.50 0.56 128.31 0.94 54.01 Overgrown 186.33 0.00 19.53 49.24 Forest 202.95 262.65 573.84 631.35 Inland water 0.12 0.12 0.0 0.0 Built-up 11.66 11.85 17.53 9.61 Inbothcasestudiesmajorlandscapechangestookplacebetween1877and1987.Itwasalsoreport-ed that a major peak of emigration from Bela krajina was reached between 1912 and 1927, and thus it was expected that the amount of abandoned land would increase as a result of out-migration. In this period the amount of cultivated fields declined in both case studies. Gardens also decreased in both case studies between 1877 and 1987. In 1987 there was an increase in built-up areas in both case stud­ies (Figures 31 and 32) suggesting that these areas were only approximately mapped in the Agrokarta, since the surface covered with urban areas decreased again in 2012. The assessment of the relation­ship between abandonment of agricultural land (through changes in the areas occupied by cultivated fields) and population dynamics for the time span between 1824 and 2012 is shown in the Figure 33. The changes in cultivated fields are closely related to the demographic changes in Bojanci (shown in brown, Figure 33). The slight increase in these areas between 1824 and 1877 was accompanied by an increase in the number of inhabitants in Bojanci for the same period. The pronounced decline in cultivated fields between 1877 and 1987 is parallel to apronounced decline in population due to emi­gration,continuingto2012.Thisconnectionbetweenchangesincultivatedfieldsandpopulationdynamics isnotseeninAdlešici(shownin green, Figure33). Aslightexpansion ofcultivatedfieldsfrom1824to 1877isnotfollowedbyanincreaseinthenumberofinhabitantsinAdlešici.Actually,demographicfluc­tuation is not so obvious in this case study. Nevertheless, the area here covered by cultivated fields also immenselydiminishedintheanalysedtimeperiod.Fromthiswecanconcludethatthelandscapechanges are closely related to the demographic situation, however, differences between the demographic struc­tureofthepopulationofAdlešiciandBojancimighthaveplayedanevenmoreimportantroleinlandscape changes. Thedecreasein agricultural landuseanddepopulation wasalso verified by Gams,Lovrencak andIngolic(1971). AsDular(1985)alsomentioned,beforethe1st WorldWarandduringtheinter-war years,theinhabitantsofAdlešiciwerepredominantlyapeasantpopulationwholivedfromagriculture, animalhusbandryandpartlyfromviticulture.After1955,manyinhabitantsofAdlešicistartedworking inCrnomelj(attheBelsadandBeltfactories),andinSemic(intheIskrafactory)after1970. Thisledto achangeintheprofessionalstructureofthepopulationthatcouldbethemaincauseofagricultureaban­donmentinthesettlement,andperhapsnottheout-migrationasseenintheBojancicasestudy.Itislikely that major changes emerged from the transformation of the social structure to non-agrarian jobs and depopulationastheresultofindustrialisationandde-agrarianisation.Nonethelessthetimespanbetween 1877and1987isconsiderable(morethan100years),comparedtothetimespanbetweentheotheradja-cent time series, and other changes could have taken place in this period that were not assessed in this study due to a lack of available data. In both case studies, from 1987 and 2012, forests and overgrown areas continued to increase, while grasslands and cultivated fields continued to decrease. In 2012 there was a slight expansionof gardens, suggestinga recourse towards homestead food self-sufficiency. 3.2.2 Landscape stability In both case studies most of the areas mapped as ‘stable’ belong to forest areas, and this shows that forests already mapped in 1824 are still forests today. The proportion of stability is higher in Bojanci thaninAdlešici,andtheproportionofforestareasinBojanciwashigherin1824thaninAdlešici.Forest isthemost ‘stable’ landusecategory. ThestabilitymapfortheAdlešicicasestudyshowsamosaicofall trajectoriesofchangewithoutacleardominantcondition(Figure34);whilstthismosaicoftrajectories ofchangeinBojanciappearsonlyaround thevillage(Figure35). ‘Cyclical’ and ‘dynamic’ changeshave beenidentifiedinsmallerareasofbothcasestudies.Bothcasestudiespresentquiteextensiveareasmapped as‘NCT’(nocleartrend).‘NCT’includesthoseareaswithvariablechangesincategoriesoccurringsev­eraltimeswithoutacleartrajectoryofchange.Thiscouldalsobearesultoftheuseofonly4datalayers. 3.2.3 Land use categories over time Figures 36 and 37 show the transitions of land use categories over time for both case studies. The box-size of land use in each time layer is proportional to land use distribution, and the size and the boldness of the arrows show the magnitude of change. In general, arable lands are being abandoned; the cultivated fields are gradually being turned into grasslands, and grasslands to forests (in smaller areas grasslands are being converted to overgrown). Grassland was the dominant land use category in 1824 in both case studies. However, grassland areas Figure 34: Stability map showing the trajectories of change for the Adlešici case study. p (str. 70) Figure 35: Stability map showing the trajectories of change for the Bojanci case study. p (str. 71) Bela krajina – Sustainability in a karst landscape decreased from 1824 to 2012, as they were mostly converted to forest land. In both case studies forest land dramatically increased. In Bojanci the forest area increased by more than 3 times from the early 1800s, while in Adlešici this corresponds to an almost five-fold increase. From observation of Figures 36 and 37 it is obvious that overgrown areas were mapped as grasslands in 1877. Therefore, the pro-portionofgrasslandsincreasedinbothcasestudiesfrom1824to1877.Inbothcasestudies,anincrease in urban areas in 1987 was followed by a decline in 2012, suggesting that this land use category was inaccurately mapped in the Agrokarta. In Adlešici, the dominant land use categories were grasslands andcultivatedfieldsin1824,whilstin2012forestsandgrasslandsweredominant.MeanwhileinBojanci the dominant land use categories in 1824 were grasslands, forests and overgrown, whilst in 2012 for­est land use was mostly dominant. Therefore, both case study areas suffer from land abandonment, however the landscape changes are different. In the 1800s cultivated fields had a more important role inAdlešicithaninBojanci,ascanbeseenbytheproportionofthislandusecategoryineachcasestudy. However, this role disappeared in the period between 1877 and 1987. 3.3 Quantitative and qualitative analyses of the Landscape Features 3.3.1 Sustainable development indicators 3.3.1.1 Selection For the selection of sustainable development indicators at the regional level, we were faced with a lack of common methodological frameworks, which hampers the comparison of results among dif­ferentstudies.Duetothepreviouslymentionedreasonsinthemethodssection(seesubchapter2.2.3.1) themeasurementofdevelopmentforthethreemunicipalities,whichcovertheentireBelakrajinaregion, was done with the employment of a set of sustainable development indicators as represented in Table 15. With the analyses of this set of indicators, we intended to study the differences between the three municipalitiesaswellastoidentifythemostrepresentativecharacteristicsofeachmunicipality,inorder to place them into the model scenarios of subchapter 3.3.1.3. The economic characteristics of development in the three municipalities were examined based on 12 indicators, encompassed in three themes: 1) welfare, 2) labour market and 3) traffic/geographical accessibility. The selection of these indicators is based on the assumption that greater economic activ­ityhasapositiveimpactontheeconomy,aspeoplehavebetteremploymentopportunities.Ontheother hand, economic development is usually connected with increasing environmental pressures (Rovan, MalešicandBregar2009;VintarMally2018).Nevertheless,economicindicatorswereinterpretedonly fromaneconomicpointofview,astherelatedsocialorenvironmentalimpactsaremonitoredbyother indicators as suggested by Vintar Mally (2018). In the following paragraphs, economic indicators (Table 15) are briefly described: 1. ‘Purchasing power per capita’ indicated by the gross taxable income per capita in € in 2015. This indicator was calculated by the Institute of Macroeconomic Analysis and Development, data source for calculation was acquired from the Financial Administration of the Republic of Slovenia and the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia. 2. ‘Added value per employee’ is the most common measure of productivity. In general, the increase in added value per employee suggests an increase in productivity. The primary data source for this indicatorfortheyear2014isAgencyoftheRepublicofSloveniaforPublicLegalRecordsandRelated Services,andthecalculationwasmadebytheInstituteofMacroeconomicAnalysisandDevelopment. 3. ‘Average annual gross salary per employee’ refers to the remuneration received for their work and includes social contributions payable by the employee. It generally represents their main source of income and therefore has a major impact on their ability to spend or save (Wages and labour costs 2016).Averageannualgrosssalaryfor2015wascalculatedbasedondataforaveragemonthlyearn­ings and was acquired from the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia. 4. The inclusion of the indicator ‘gross investment in new fixed assets’ in this assessment is extreme­ly important, because the new forms of investment are, as a general rule, directly related to the educationalstructureofthepopulationinacertainarea(RavbarandRazpotnik2007).Inthisrespect, newinvestmentisusuallyidentifiedwithnewknowledge,mostoftenthroughnewproducts,inno­vations and new technological or organisational approaches (Ravbar 2009). Gross investment in newfixedassetsper1000inhabitantswasbasedontheaveragegrossinvestmentinnewfixedassets between2012and2015,datasourceacquiredfromtheStatisticalOfficeoftheRepublicofSlovenia. 5. ‘Job density’ is expressed by the number of jobs in each municipality (in 2015) divided by its res-identpopulationofworkingage(15to64years). Thisindicatorwascalculatedbasedondatafrom the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia. 6. ‘Location divergence’ gives an indication of the differences between workplaces and employees in aparticulararea,whichprovidesthebasisforinsightsintothesocio-economicstructureoftheset­tlement network (Bole 2008). It is calculated by the ratio of the number of economically active population by place of work, and the number of economically active population by place of resi­dence, multiplied by 100 (Ravbar and Kozina 2012). If location divergence is 100, the number of jobs and employees in the municipality is balanced, if it is greater than 100, there is an excess of job opportunities, if less than 100, there is a surplus of employees (Ravbar 2014). Source data for thisindicatorisfromtheyear2015andwasgatheredattheStatisticalOfficeoftheRepublicofSlovenia. 7. ‘Registered unemployment rate’ and changes in the number of registered unemployed also mark thecontemporarysituationofthecomponentsinthemunicipality,especiallyduringtheeconomic crisis (Ravbar 2014). This indicator is reflected by the proportion of registered unemployed per­sons among the active population by place of residence (Kozina 2013). Data for this indicator is from 2016 and was acquired from the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia. 8. ‘Proportion of population with service occupations’, by place of residence shows professions relatedtotrade,catering,tourism,transportandcommunications,community,socialandpersonal services,finance,realestate,publicadministration,educationandhealth(Kozina2016).According to Klemencic (1989), Slovenia reached a tertiary stage of the socio-economic transition process, and thus the proportion of the population with service occupations positively contributes to the developmentoftheregion.ThisisespeciallysoinaremoteruralregionsuchasBelakrajina,where the population with service occupations represent the vast majority of the work force. When the highestdegreeofsocio-economicdevelopmentiscentralised,out-migrationfromremoteruralareas is expected. This indicator was prepared by the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia, data sourceforthecalculationisfromtheStatisticalRegisterofEmployment(Statisticniregister…2015). 9. ‘Proportionofpopulationwithtertiaryeducation’showstherateofgraduatesinrelationtothetotal number of inhabitants. Tertiary education comprises post-secondary vocational, higher under-graduate,andpostgraduatestudies,conductedatpublicandprivatehighervocationalschoolsand higher education institutions (Kozina 2013). According to Kozina (2016), a higher concentration of creative people occurs predominantly in more developed regions. Thus higher values for this indicatorcontributetobetterconditionstowardssustainabledevelopment.Thedatasourceforthis indicatorisfromtheyear2015andwasacquiredfromtheStatisticalOfficeoftheRepublicofSlovenia. 10. ‘Averagetraveltimebycartothenearestaccessibleregionalcentre’ measurestransportaccessibility toregionalcentresanditisdefinedastheaveragetraveltimebycartakenbyresidentsofthemunic­ipality to the nearest accessible regional centres (Kozina 2013). The distance of the municipality to the nearest regional centre, here expressed as car travel time in minutes, is a significant indica­tor to the attractiveness of the municipality as a residential or commuting location (Gramm et al. 2008). As Bela krajina is a border region, Croatian regional centres close to the study region were also taken into account for the calculation of this indicator. Novo mesto and Karlovac were taken asregionalcentresforthecalculationofthisindicator.Informationforthisindicatorwasacquired through the web-based service Google Maps. 11. ‘Average travel time by car to the nearest accessible motorway or highway connection’ is another measure of transport accessibility and is defined as the average travel time by car taken by resi­dents of the municipality to the nearest accessible motorway or highway connection. Access to significant traffic routes in marginal regions, such as Bela krajina, is a key factor of economic (as well as demographic) development. Easy access to motorways or highways offers the population greaterchoiceofemployment,residenceandprovisionsofcomodities(Razpotnik2008).Croatian roadswerealsotakenintoaccounthere.Theaccessibilityanddistancefromthecentreofeachmunic­ipality to the closest motorway or highway was calculated by the distance in travel time by car in minutes through the web-based service Google Maps. 12. ‘Proportion of population living within a radius of 0.5km from the nearest public transport stop’ measuresaccessibilitytopublictransport.Thisisreflectedbytheproportionofthepopulationliv­ing within a radius of 500m from public transport stops in the year 2015 (%). The data source for the calculation of this indicator was based on the public transport stations and stops within the studyarea(eDaljinar2016)andnumberofpeopleperhousenumber(Evidencahišnihštevilk2015). The environmental dimension is represented by 14 indicators, outlining the environmental pres- surescausedbyhumanactivities,socialresponsestoenvironmentalissues,andthestateofsomelandscape elements (VintarMally 2018).Theseindicators weregroupedintofivethemes:1) agriculture,2) infra-structure/technology, 3) livestock, 4) protected areas and 5) management of natural resources. Nevertheless, only 8 of them were used in the analyses due to data unavailability at municipality level. In the following paragraphs, environmental indicators (Table 15) are briefly described: 1. ‘Organically farmed land’ is defined as the proportion of total utilised agricultural area occupied by organic farming. Some studies (e.g., Slabe et al. 2010; Slabe, Lampic and Juvancic 2011; Lampic and Slabe 2013) have addressed the need for organic farming for the development of the local and regional economy, enhancing the role of organic farming in improving the local/regional food sup­ply. Organic farming reduces the impact of agriculture on karst systems, enhancing the region’s sustainability.DataforthisindicatorwasprovidedbytheAgencyforAgriculturalMarketsandRural Development (Površine zemljišc…2015). 2. Data for ‘wooded areas’ was acquired from land records of agricultural and forestry uses from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Food from 2016 (Evidenca dejanske rabe…2016); from this datasetweincludeaswoodedareastheareasclassifiedas:plantationofforesttrees,treesandshrubs, and forest. Higher values for this indicator represent better conditions towards environmental sus-tainability,asforestsareoneofthemainlandscapefeaturesinSlovenia,andinparticularinBelakrajina. 3. ‘Intensivelyfarmedland’isrepresentedinthisstudybytheratiobetweentheareaofcultivatedfields (including permanent crops) and the area occupied by grasslands (meadows and pastures). Lower values indicate a predominance of grasslands, which is favourable both in terms of preserving nat­ural resources and maintaining ecological balance. Cultivated fields and permanent crops usually refer to more intensive use of the land, and management of grasslands is usually more extensive, thereforeratiosinfavourofgrasslandshaveapositiveimpactonenvironmentalsustainability(Lampic et al. 2016). The data was acquired from the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia for 2010 (last data available). Karst regions face a duality of challenges, on the one hand is the preservation ofkarstsystems,whichareveryvulnerableandsensitivetoexternaldisturbance.Ontheotherhand, is the relationship between nature and culture which results in valuable and unique landscapes. Intensive agriculture in karst areas goes against the principles of sustainable development in these areas. Thus the intensification of land use has negative impacts in karst systems, leading to conta­mination of groundwater and soil compaction and erosion. 4. ‘Built-up areas’ comprise different types of land use such as housing developments, industrial and commercialuse,sportsandleisurefacilities. Theyalsoincludetransportinfrastructuresuchasroad andrailnetworks. Theexpansionofbuilt-upareasisconsideredhereasanenvironmentalpressure, having an ecological impact. Data for built-up areas was acquired from land records of agricultural andforestryusefromtheMinistryofAgriculture,ForestryandFoodfrom2016(Evidencadejanske rabe…2016);fromthisdatasettherecordsclassifiedas‘Built-upandrelatedland’(code3000)were used. 5. ‘Housing with district heating’ refers to the proportion of buildings connected to district heating. District heating based on low-carbon energy is identified as a key technology for the transition to alow-carboneconomy(Lizanaetal.2017)andthustowardssustainableenergydevelopment.This indicatorisbasedondatafrom2015,acquiredfromtheStatisticalOfficeoftheRepublicofSlovenia. 6. ‘Roadfreighttransportgrowthindex’referstotheenvironmentalimpactthatroadtraffichas,espe­cially regarding emissions from this activity. However, data for this indicator is unavailable at municipal level; therefore, we were not able to include it in the analysis. 7. ‘Motorisation rate’ is defined as the number of passenger cars per 100 inhabitants. This indicator refers to data from 2014, acquired from the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia. 8. ‘Livestock density index’ provides the average number of livestock units per hectare of utilised agri­culturalareafortheyear2010(latestdataavailable),gatheredfromtheStatisticalOfficeoftheRepublic ofSlovenia. 9. ‘Natura 2000 sites’ refer to the proportion of Natura 2000 sites of the total area. Data for this indi­catorreferstotheyear2013andwasacquiredfromtheInstituteoftheRepublicofSloveniaforNature Conservation. Somestudies(LampicandMrak2008;Lampic,MrakandPlut2011;TheEconomic benefits…2013) have proved that the Natura 2000 network, besides providing protection to bio-diversityinEurope,alsoimpartsarangeofbenefitstosocietyandtheeconomythroughrecreation benefits (value of the recreational experience) and tourism (economic impacts that expenditure by visitors delivers to local economies). 10. ‘Averageexpenditureonenvironmentalprotection(%GDP)’ isanindicatorwhichshowsthesocial responsetoenvironmentissues(VintarMally2018).However,dataforthisindicatorisnotavailable atthemunicipallevelandthereforethiswasnotincludedintheanalyses.Dataisavailableatthesta­tisticalregionlevel(NUTS3),andcanbeacquiredfromtheStatisticalOfficeoftheRepublicofSlovenia. 11. ‘Water consumption’ shows the household consumption of water per capita. Due to data unavail­ability for the municipal level, this indicator could not be included in the analyses. Data for the levelofstatisticalregions(NUTS3)orwatershedmanagementcanbeacquiredfromtheStatistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia. 12. ‘Treatedwastewater’isanindicatorofthesocialresponsestoanenvironmentalissue(wastewaterpro­duction) (Vintar Mally 2018). As with the previous indicator, this indicator is only available at the statisticalregion(NUTS3)orwatershedmanagementlevels,thereforewasnotincludedintheanalyses. 13. Effortshavebeenmadetocollectdatareferringto‘airquality’.However,airqualitydatawasunavail-able for Bela krajina, as there are no monitoring stations in the study region. 14. ‘Municipalwaste’referstothemunicipalwastegeneratedin2015percapita.Thedatasourceforthis indicatorcomesfromtheMinistry oftheEnvironment andSpatial Planning,however information forthisindicatorwascalculatedandacquiredfromtheStatisticalOfficeoftheRepublicofSlovenia. The 8 indicators selected to represent the societal status of the three municipalities were grouped into two themes: 1) demographic strength and 2) social situation. Demographic indicators show the characteristics and population dynamics in the municipality, which is the main bearer of development initiatives in local communities (Ravbar 2014). We assume that a positive rate of population growth anditscomponentsaregenerallycharacteristicofareaswithhigherdevelopment(atleastinsocialaspects). In the following paragraphs, social indicators (Table 15) are briefly described: 1. ‘Population density’ shows the number of inhabitants per km2in each municipality in 2015, and is important for examining the status of the municipality. Here we consider that lower values of pop­ulation density in the municipality means that these municipalities are more exposed to pressures from public administration or private interest groups (Zumaglini 2008). Data for this indicator was gathered at the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia. Table 15: The set of sustainable development indicators used to measure the sustainable development of the municipalities, presented by themes and respective domains of sustainable development. The column ‘source’ gives information about similar studies which have used the same or comparable indicators. Domain Theme Numbering Indicator Source in the text Economic Welfare 1 Purchasing power per Rovan, Malešic, Bregar (2009); capita (€) Ravbar (2014) 2 Added value per employee (€) Rovan,MalešicandBregar(2009); Ravbar (2014); Vintar Mally (2018) 3 Average annual gross salary Potocnik Slavic (2010); per employee (€) Ravbar (2014); Vintar Mally (2018) 4 Grossinvestmentinnewfixed Ravbar (2014); assets per 1000 inhabitants Vintar Mally (2018) (in 1000 €) Labour 5 Job density (number of jobs Potocnik Slavic (2010); market per 1000 inhabitants) Ravbar (2014) 6 Location divergence Ravbar (2014) 7 Registered unemployment Rovan,MalešicandBregar(2009); rate (%) Ravbar (2014); KazalnikiblaginjevSloveniji(2015) 8 Proportion of population with Ravbar (2014) service occupations, by place of residence (%) 9 Proportion of population with Rovan, Malešic, Bregar (2009); tertiary education (%) Ravbar (2014); KazalnikiblaginjevSloveniji(2015) Traffic-10 Average travel time by car to Ravbar (2014) geographical the nearest accessible regional accessibility centre (minutes) 11 Average travel time by car to Ravbar (2014) the nearest accessible motorway or highwayconnection (minutes) 12 Proportion of population living Ravbar (2014) withinaradiusof0.5kmfromthe nearest public transport stop (%) Environ-Agriculture 1 Organically farmed land (%) Lampic et al. (2016); mental Vintar Mally (2018) 2 Wooded areas (m2/capita) Vintar Mally (2018) 3 Intensively farmed land Lampic et al. (2016); (cropland/grassland) Vintar Mally (2018) Infrastructure/ technology 4 Built-up areas (%) KazalnikiblaginjevSloveniji(2015); Vintar Mally (2018) 5 Housing with district heating (%) Vintar Mally (2018) 6 Road freight transport growth index Vintar Mally (2018) 7 Motorisation rate (cars/100 people) Rovan, Malešic and Bregar (2009); Vintar Mally (2018) Livestock 8 Livestock density index (LSU/ha) Lampic et al. (2016);Vintar Mally (2018) Protected areas 9 Natura 2000 sites (%) KazalnikiblaginjevSloveniji(2015); Vintar Mally (2018) 10 Average expenditure on environ-Rovan, Malešic, Bregar (2009); mental protection (% GDP) Vintar Mally (2018) Management of natural 11 Water consumption (m3/capita) KazalnikiblaginjevSloveniji(2015); Vintar Mally (2018) resources 12 Treated wastewater (m3/capita) KazalnikiblaginjevSloveniji(2015); Vintar Mally (2018) 13 Air quality (assessment) KazalnikiblaginjevSloveniji(2015); Vintar Mally (2018) 14 Municipal waste (kg/capita) Rovan, Malešic and Bregar (2009); KazalnikiblaginjevSloveniji(2015); Vintar Mally (2018) Social Demographic strength 1 Population density (people/km2) Ravbar (2014); Vintar Mally (2018) 2 Ageing index Rovan, Malešic and Bregar (2009); Ravbar (2014); Vintar Mally (2018) 3 Natality (births per 1000 inhabitants) Ravbar (2014) 4 Population growth (population index between 2010 and 2015) Rovan, Malešic and Bregar (2009); Ravbar (2014); Vintar Mally (2018) 5 Migration balance (%) Rovan, Malešic and Bregar (2009); Potocnik Slavic (2010); Ravbar (2014) 6 Proportion ofeconomically active Ravbar (2014) population among inhabitants, by place of residence (%) Social situation 7 Proportion of population which Rovan, Malešic and Bregar (2009); receives social assistance (number Potocnik Slavic (2010); of recipients/1000 people) Ravbar (2014); Vintar Mally (2018) 8 Number of associations per 1000 inhabitants Potocnik Slavic (2010); Ravbar (2014) 2. ‘Ageing index’gives information on the population structure of the municipality. Data for this indi­cator regards 2015 and was acquired from the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia. 3. ‘Natality’referstolivebirthsper1000inhabitantsin2015. Dataforthisindicatorwasacquiredfrom the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia. 4. ‘Population growth’ shows the rate of regeneration within a population. Here it shows the trend of population change between 2010 and 2015. The data source for this indicator was acquired from the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia. 5. ‘Migration balance’ is the ratio between immigrants to and emigrants from an area. This indicator shows the total net migration per 1000 inhabitants in 2015 and was acquired from the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia. 6. ‘Proportionofeconomicallyactivepopulationamonginhabitants’ comprisestheproportionofpop­ulation aged between 15 and 64 who were employed or unemployed for at least six months in 2015 and was gathered at the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia. 7. ‘Proportionofpopulationwhichreceivessocialassistance’ showsthenumberofrecipientsoffinan­cial social assistance per 1000 inhabitants for 2011 (latest available data) and was gathered at the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia. 8. ‘Numberofassociationsper1000inhabitants’ referstothenumberofvoluntarynon-profitorganisa­tions,includingNGOs,politicalorsocialorganisationsregisteredinthemunicipalityper1000inhabitants. This indicator plays a positive role in regional development as it shows the organisation of the civil societyinlocalcommunities(Ravbar2014).ThenumberofassociationswasacquiredfromtheRegister ofAssociations,Institutions and Political Parties(Društva,politicnestranke in ustanove 2017). 3.3.1.2 Measuring sustainable development Themeasurementofthesustainabledevelopmentofthethreemunicipalitiesusingsustainabledevel­opmentindicatorspresentedinTables16,17and18wasdonebythecomparisonofeachindicatorwith the average for the study region. If the value was lower than the average in the study region a minus (–) was assigned; if the value was the same or was not significantly different from the average for the studyregionanequals(=)wasassignedand,ifthevaluewashigherthantheaverageforthestudyregion a plus (+) was assigned. For the comparison between the study region and the average for Slovenia we used numbers (Columns 7 and 8 in Tables 16, 17 and 18). According to the analysis of economic indicators, Semic is the most developed municipality in the study region, while Crnomelj is the least developed. According to the environmental indicators, both Crnomelj and Semic are in a favourable position in the area of environmental sustainability, however Semic is in a relatively better position, followed by Crnomelj and then Metlika. Inaccordancewithsocial indicators,Semic hasachievedhigherdevelopment,followedbyMetlika and finally Crnomelj. The quantitative analysis of the landscape features forsustainabledevelopment,through the appli­cation of classic sustainable development indicators for the three municipalities, shows that there are differences among the three municipalities (Tables 16, 17 and 18). The most favourable domain in the Crnomelj Municipality is environmental, and the least developed is social (Column 2 in Table 19). In Metlika the most developed domain is economic, while the environmental and social domains are less developed(Column 3inTable 19). InSemic, allthree pillarsof sustainabledevelopmentin this munic­ipalityareabovetheaverageforBelakrajina.Themostfavourabledomainofsustainabilityisenvironmental, followed by economic, and finally the social domain (Column 4 in Table 19). Consideringtheabove,itispossibletostatethatwefounddifferencesinstructurewithregardtothe economy,populationandenvironmentwithinBelakrajina.Takingintoaccountthe3domainsandcom­paringallthreemunicipalities,wecanconcludethatSemicisthemostsustainablydevelopedmunicipality inBelakrajina,andCrnomeljistheleastsustainablydevelopedmunicipalityinBelakrajina,withMetlika Table 16: Values attributed to the economic indicators for the three municipalities, as well as averages for the study region and Slovenia. Theme Numbering Indicator Crnomelj Metlika Semic Bela krajina Slovenia in the text Welfare 1 Purchasing power per capita (€) = – + 6906.7 8007.0 2 Added value per employee (€) – – + 31,165.7 41,124.0 3 Average annual gross salary + – – 1276.9 1555.7 per employee (€) 4 Gross investment in new fixed assets – + + 5705.6 9517.0 per 1000 inhabitants (in 1000 €) Labour market 5 Job density (number of jobs – = + 357.3 378.9 per 1000 inhabitants) 6 Location divergence – + + 88.6 102.8 7 Registered unemployment rate (%) – + + 17.6 12.3 8 Proportion of population with service + + – 45.1 45.4 occupations, by place of residence (%) 9 Proportion of population with tertiary + = – 9.5 12.6 education (%) Traffic-10 Average travel time by car to the nearest – + + 32 22 geographical accessible regional centre (minutes) accessibility 11 Average travel time by car to the nearest = + – 29 19 accessible motorway or highwayconnection (minutes) 12 Proportion of population living within + – – 71.6 76.5 a radius of 0.5 km from the nearest public transport stop (%) Table 17: Values attributed to the environmental indicators for the three municipalities, as well as averages for the study region and for Slovenia. Theme Numbering Indicator Crnomelj Metlika Semic Bela krajina Slovenia in the text Agriculture 1 Organically farmed land (%) – – + 18.1 8.8 2 Wooded areas (m2/capita) – – + 22,077.2 5953.1 3 Intensively farmed land(cropland/grassland) – – + 0.70 0.71 Infrastructure/ 4 Built-up areas (%) + – + 3.8 5.4 technology 5 Housing with district heating (%) + + – 8.3 13.9 6 Road freight transport growth index /* / / / / 7 Motorisation rate (cars/100 people) + = – 52 52 Livestock 8 Livestock density index (LSU/ha) – + = 0.54 0.89 Protected areas 9 Natura 2000 sites (%) + – + 43.4 37.2 10 Average expenditure on environmental / / / / 1.15 protection (% GDP) Management 11 Water consumption (m3/capita) / / / / 38.1 of natural 12 Treated wastewater (m3/capita) / / / / 787.6 resources 12 Air quality (monitoring parameters) / / / / / 14 Municipal waste (kg/capita) + – = 378.7 451.0 No data. * Table 18: Values attributed to the social indicators for the three municipalities, as well as averages for the study region and Slovenia. Theme Numbering Indicator Crnomelj Metlika Semic Bela krajina Slovenia in the text Demographic 1 Population density (people/km2) – + – 48.6 102.0 strength 2 Ageing index – – + 126.4 122.7 3 Natality (births per 1000 inhabitants) – = + 9.4 10.0 4 Population growth (population index = + = 99.0 100.7 between 2010 and 2015) 5 Migration balance (%) – + – –3.4 0.2 6 Proportion of economically active – = + 38.6 38.9 population among inhabitants,by place of residence (%) Social situation 7 Proportion of population which receives – – + 37.3 42.0 social assistance (number of recipients/1000 people) 8 Number of associations per 1000 inhabitants = + – 13.5 11.5 in between. These results follow, to a certain extent, the trends of the municipality development coef­ficient presented in Figure 38. The value of the development coefficient for the Semic Municipality is slightlyabovethevalueofthesameindicesfortheCrnomeljMunicipality.However,asourresultsshowed thatthelocaldevelopmentoftheMetlikaMunicipalityislowerthanthelocaldevelopmentoftheSemic Municipality, this is not proved by the municipality development coefficient (Figure 38). Table 19: Sustainable development in the three municipalities. Domain of sustainable development Crnomelj Metlika Semic Economic -2 +2 +2 Environmental +1 -3 +3 Social -6 -2 +1 Total score (sum) -7 -3 +6 Table 20: Comparison of the sustainable development in the study region with the national level. Domain of sustainable development Bela krajina Slovenia Economic –11 +11 Environmental +5 –5 Social –3 +3 Total score (sum) –9 +9 Comparing Bela krajina with Slovenia (Table 20), according to 17 out of 29 indicators the study regionislaggingbehindthenationalaverage,whichwaspreviouslydemonstratedbyotherstudies(e.g., Rovan,MalešicinBregar2009;Ravbar2014).Ofthese17indicators,11belongtotheeconomicdomain, 5 to the social domain and only 1 indicator is environmental. However, with regard to eight indicators (organicallyfarmedland,woodedareas,built-upareas,livestockdensityindex,Natura2000sites,munic­ipal waste, proportion of population which receives social assistance and number of associations) the study region is above the Slovenian average. Curiously, six of these indicators are environmental indi­cators.Thiscorroborateswithourargument,thattheinclusionofenvironmentalindicatorsinmeasuring sustainabledevelopmentiscrucialtoobtainingaholisticinterpretationofthedevelopmentstatusofacer­tainarea.Insummation,theeconomicandsocialdomainsofBelakrajinaarebelowthenationalaverage, while the environmental domainin Belakrajinaismore favourablethan the Slovenian average. 3.3.1.3 Model Matrix BasedonthesustainabledevelopmentindicatorspresentedinTables16,17and18,wecreatedamodel matrix of landscape types reflecting their population retention capacity, which shows an important factor for sustainable regional development (Table 21). Table 21: Model matrix of landscape types reflecting their population retention capacity. Economic value Environmental value Social value Landscape type Population retention capacity Low Low Low Degraded landscape Low population retention capacity Low High Low Natural landscape / Low High High Traditional landscape of extensive agriculture and low industry. Agriculture is notretreating to a great extent but farms run extensively.Resulting in a traditionalagricultural landscape. Low population retention in the long-term due to low profitability Low Medium/High Medium Abandoned rural landscape dominated by distinct over­-ageing of the population and a particularly acute decline in farming, mainly due to poortransport infrastructure inthese areas. These areas are Low population retention in the long-term due to low profitability, depopulation and land abandonment threatened by depopulation. Medium High High Multifunctional cultural landscape Strong ability to retain long-term population Medium High Medium Valuable natural and cultural landscape; landscape main­tained through agricultural subsidies and tourism Ability to retain population through subsidies and tourism income High Low High Intensive agricultural (or industrial) landscape Low population retention in the long-term due to consumptionof environmental goods 3.3.1.4 Scenarios for Bela krajina According to the results obtained in subchapter 3.3.1.2, we established a rating for all three munic­ipalitiesinregardtotheireconomic,socialandenvironmentalvalues(Table22).Lowmeansthatmore thanhalfoftheindicatorswereratedbelowtheaverage.Mediummeansthathalfoftheindicatorswere negatively rated and the other half positively rated. High means that more than half of the indicators were positively rated. Table 22: Placing the three municipalities in the model scenarios. Crnomelj Metlika Semic Economic value Environmental value Social value Low High Low Medium-high Low Medium High High Medium Landscape type Natural landscape Intensive agricultural landscape Valuable natural and cultural landscape According to the scenarios proposed in the model matrix of landscape types reflecting their pop-ulationretentioncapacity(Table21),Crnomelj isconsidered closestto a naturallandscape (Column2 in Table 22). We rearranged the classification of the Crnomelj Municipality as we believe that accord­ing to the sustainable development indicators, Crnomelj can be characterised as an abandoned rural landscapedominatedbydistinctover-agingofthepopulation,poortransportinfrastructure,andapar­ticularlyacutedeclineinfarming.Thismunicipalityisthreatenedbydepopulation,andthereforepresents low population retention in the long-term due to low profitability, depopulation and land abandon­ment. According to the model matrix, Metlika is characterised as an intensive agriculture landscape with low population retention in the long-term due to the consumption of resources (Column 3 in Table 22). With regard to the sustainable development indicators and model matrix, Semic is defined asavaluablenaturalandculturallandscape(Column4inTable22),i.e.alandscapemaintainedthrough agricultural subsidies and tourism with the ability to retain population throughsubsidies and tourism income. Thescenariosattributedtothethreemunicipalitiesfromthepreviousstep(Table22)werethebasis for future scenarios for Bela krajina. These are plausible future scenarios and include: 1. ThefirstscenarioisbasedontheinterpretationofthecurrentsituationoftheCrnomeljMunicipality and assumes that the current situation will continue in the future, so Bela krajina’s landscapes will become completely overgrown, as a result of poor demographic structure (depopulation, popula­tion age). Abandonment of agricultural land will continue and forests will expand regardless of the potential for agriculture. This scenario is likely to result in the loss of the cultural landscape. 2. Thesecondscenario isbasedonthesituationoftheMetlikaMunicipality,whichpredictsthatindus-try will grow on the account of nature and that built-up areas and infrastructure will expand. This will lead to an increase in job opportunities, out-migration will decrease and the karst systems will be affected more. Agricultural activities will be more intensive, and an increase in the number of agricultural holdings and a decrease in the number of farms will take place. This scenario leads to unsustainable development of the study region. 3. The third scenario assumes that agricultural land will be more or less maintained due to financial incentives, especially through the promotion of organic farming. The overgrowing process will sta­bilise. The number of small enterprises will increase, as will the creation of new job opportunities. Tourism will develop. Population growth will slightly increase. This scenario is based on the interpre­tation of the Semic Municipality. Thepreviouslymentionedscenariosaimtoinformandencouragedecisionmakerstolookbeyond the current state of the landscape and envision more sustainable possibilities for future landscapes. 3.3.2 Structured interviews The answers to all the questions from the interviews done by the five stakeholder groups (farm­ers, resident non-farmers, professionals of nature protection, tourism professionals, representatives of localgovernments)wereanalysedindividuallyandarepresentedinsubchapter3.3.2.1.Ingeneral,par­ticipantstendedtotalkaboutthewholeofBelakrajinaanditscharacteristics,insteadofjusttheirlocal landscapes. Itisimportanttonotethateventhoughweconductedstructuredinterviewswithatotalof32respon­dents,someofthequestionswerethesameforalltheinterviewees,whilstotherquestionsdifferedamong them (see Table 8). Three different versions of the questionnaire were prepared according to the tar-getstakeholder–onetypewaspreparedforfarmersandresidentnon-farmers;anothertypewasprepared fortourismprofessionalsandprofessionalsofnatureprotection;andathirdtypewasdesignedforrep­resentatives of local governments. 3.3.2.1 Analysis of the answers 1. What does the landscape provide you with? Respondentsmentionedbetweenoneandfourdifferentaspectsofwhatthelandscapeprovidesfor them, resulting in a total of 14 different items. The most salient item was ‘Food’ (17.9%) followed by ‘Unspoiled nature/nature’ (15.4%) (Table 23, Figure 39). Table 23: Items mentioned by the respondents regarding what the landscape provides them with. Item Response percentage (%) Food* 17.9 Unspoiled nature/nature 15.4 Recreation/relaxation 12.8 Workplace 10.2 Life 7.7 Well-being 7.7 Place where I am from 5.1 Wood 5.1 Tourism 5.1 Income 2.6 Pleasant climate 2.6 Fauna 2.6 Handicrafts 2.6 Social-relations 2.6 *included wine (one answer) Items such as ‘Workplace’ and ‘Place where I am from’ have a much higher importance for farm­ers than for resident non-farmers, similar to results shown by Bieling et al. (2014). These results show that the relationship between farmers and the landscape is often based on material factors, as Bieling etal.(2014)alsodiscussed.Benefitssuchas‘Recreation/relaxation’and‘Well-being’weremostlymen­tionedbyresidentnon-farmers.Theseresultsshowtheimportanceofdifferentaspectsofthelandscape todifferentgroupsofstakeholders.Logically,farmersansweredwith‘Workplace’asasubsistencefunc­tion that the landscape provides them. On the other hand, items such as ‘Recreation/relaxation’ and ‘Well-being’ are more appreciated by resident non-farmers, showing the importance of cultural land-scapeservicesforthisgroupofstakeholders.‘Unspoilednature/nature’,oneofthemostoftenmentioned aspects of the landscape, was equally recognised by farmers and resident non-farmers, showing their appreciation of the local landscape, and according to Bieling et al. (2014), representing relationships based on landscape properties. 2. What makes this landscape attractive? Respondentsmentionedbetweenoneand12differentaspectsthatmakethelandscapesofBelakra­jinaattractive(onaverage3.8itemsperrespondent),resultinginatotalof32differentitems(Figure40). Table24displaystheseitemsacrossallrespondents.Themostfrequentlymentioneditem‘Naturalness, nature’ was expressed by more than a third of the respondents, followed by ‘Kolpa River’. An interest­ingpieceofinformationextractedfromthetranscriptionswasthatrespondentstalkedabouttheKolpa River,whenaskedabouttheattractivenessoftheirlandscape,eventhoseinareasdistantfromtheriver. Ifweincludedalltheriversmentioned(Kolpa,Lahinja,KrupaandDoblicica)intheitem‘Watersources’, the frequency of this item would substantially increase, being the most mentioned item from 65.6% of the respondents. These results show how the respondents value the physical qualities of the land­scape, such as water bodies/sources. Farmersmentioned10differentitemsthatmakethelandscapeattractive.42.9%offarmersmentioned the ‘Senseofbelonging’ and ‘Diversity,variety’ ofthelandscapeasthemostattractiveitems,followedby 28.6%referringto‘KolpaRiver’,‘Beauty’,‘Climate’and‘Forest’.Aspectssuchas:‘Tranquillity’,‘Naturalness, nature’,‘Green’and‘Hills’werementionedonlyonce.Wedidnotfindsignificantdifferencesamongtheir answers in the differentmunicipalities. Representativesoflocalgovernmentsreferredto16itemsthatmakethelandscapeattractivetolive or attractive to tourism. Half of the respondents mentioned ‘Naturalness, nature’, ‘Natural resources’ and‘KolpaRiver’,33.3%referredto‘Watersources’,‘Green’and‘Diversity,variety’.Theitems‘Hills’,‘Culture, traditions’, ‘Doblicica River’, ‘Lahinja River’, ‘Recreation, relaxation’, ‘Special, original’, ‘Tranquillity’, ‘Cultivation’ and ‘Litter raking forests’ were only mentioned by one respondent. In this group of stake­holders we also did not identify significant differences among the municipalities. Tourism stakeholders responded with 17 items related to the attractiveness of the landscape in the region, with 75% of the respondents mentioning ‘Culture, traditions’ being the most prominent. 50% oftherespondentshighlightedthe‘Naturalness,nature’ofBelakrajinaaspotentialattractionsfortourism. 37.5%oftherespondentsmentioned‘Clean’,‘KolpaRiver’,and‘Recreation’asaspectsoflandscapeattrac­tiveness.Alltheotheritemswereonlymentionedby25%orlessoftheparticipants(‘Litterrakingforests’, ‘Gastronomy’,‘Diversity,variety’,‘Green’,‘Protectedareas’,‘Forest,woodland’,‘LahinjaRiver’,‘Biodiversity’, ‘Cultural landscape’, ‘Natural resources’ and ‘Ecology’). Nature protection stakeholders mentioned 16 different items that make the landscape of Bela kra­jina attractive. Mentioned by 75% of the respondents was the item ‘Culture, traditions’, followed by ‘Tranquillity’ and ‘Karstic features’ which were mentioned by 50% of the respondents. The following items were mentioned only once: ‘Diversity, variety’, ‘Special, original’, ‘Unspoilt’, ‘Natural resources’, ‘Views’,‘Green’,‘Litterrakingforests’,‘Kolpa River’,‘Lahinja River’,‘Krupa River’,‘Biodiversity’,‘Quality oflife’and‘Recreation,relaxation’.Theseresultsaresomewhatsurprising,astheserespondentsaremore involved with nature protection, and so one might expect that their answers would be more connect­ed to nature elements, nevertheless, the most mentioned item was ‘Culture, traditions’. Residentnon-farmersofBelakrajinaindicated11itemsthatmaketheirlandscapeattractivetolive in. The items ‘Clean’, ‘Naturalness, nature’ and ‘Recreation, relaxation’ were mentioned by 50% of the participants, followed by ‘Kolpa River’, ‘Forest, woodland’ and ‘Water sources’ which were mentioned by33.3%oftherespondents.Theremainingitemswereonlymentionedbyonerespondent(‘Unspoilt’, ‘Qualityoflife’,‘Provisionoffood’,‘Green’ and‘Diversity,variety’).Adifferentanswerwasgivenbyone resident non-farmer who mentioned that the landscape does not limit his activities, as he is a repre­sentative of a company located in the region. Table 24: Items mentioned by the respondents while talking about aspects that make the landscapes of Bela krajina attractive. Item Response percentage (%) Naturalness, nature 9.75 Kolpa River 8.94 Clean 7.32 Diversity, variety 7.32 Culture, traditions 6.50 Recreation, relaxation 6.50 Green 5.69 Forest, woodland 4.07 Natural resources 3.25 Litter raking forests 3.25 Special, original 3.25 Tranquillity 3.25 Water sources 3.25 Lahinja River 2.44 Sense of belonging 2.44 Unspoilt 2.44 Karstic features 1.63 Biodiversity 1.63 Quality of life 1.63 Protected areas 1.63 Cultural landscape 1.63 Gastronomy 1.63 Hills 1.63 Climate 1.63 Beauty 1.63 Krupa River 0.81 Views 0.81 Provision of food 0.81 Cultivation 0.81 Doblicica River 0.81 Ecology 0.81 Does not limit activities 0.81 3. Does the landscape contribute to your well-being? How? 12 out of 13 respondents affirmed that their landscape contributes positively to their well-being. Theserespondentsindicated20aspects(Figure41)ofthelandscapethatcontributetotheirwell-being, such as: ‘Beauty’, ‘Naturalness, nature’, ‘Forest’, ‘Kolpa River’, ‘Hills’, ‘Recreation, relaxation’, ‘Good air’, ‘Good water’, ‘Vineyards, wine’, ‘Home’, ‘Pleasant landscape’, ‘Cultivated landscape’, ‘Joy’, ‘Green’, ‘Peace’, ‘Undulating landscape’, ‘Positive landscape’, ‘Health’, ‘Happiness’ and ‘Good for the soul’. As in the study by Bieling et al. (2014), we can say that the referred to items are related to forms of the landscape and relationships. According to Bieling et al. (2014), aspects such as ‘Peace’, ‘Good for the soul’, ‘Home’, ‘Happiness’, ‘Joy’, ‘Health’, and ‘Recreation, relaxation’ are predominantly intangible relationships. Wealsoconsider ‘Positivelandscape’and ‘Pleasantlandscape’ asintangiblerelationships. Aspectssuchas‘Goodair’,‘Goodwater’,‘Green’,‘Naturalness,nature’arerelationshipsbasedontheland­scapeproperties.‘Beauty’asaholisticaspectisconsideredtobeconnectedtothedifferentrelationships between humans and the landscape. Only 1 out of 13 respondents mentioned that the landscape itself does not contribute to his well-being but rather to his lifestyle, however he affirmed that life where he lived is good. On the other hand, this respondent recognised a negative aspect of his landscape, which is the distance to markets. Therelationshipsbetweenhumansandthelandscapewerementionedmorefrequentlythantheforms ofthelandscape(Table25).Withintheserelationships,theintangiblerelationshipswereexpressedmore often.‘Recreation,relaxation’wasmentionedmoreoften(14.71%),followedby‘Naturalness,nature’,‘Good air’ and ‘Peace’ each with 11.77% of responses. Aspectssuchas‘Beauty’,‘Forest’,‘Hills’,‘Goodwater’,‘Vineyards,wine’,‘Home’,‘Pleasantlandscape’, ‘Cultivation landscape’, ‘Joy’ and ‘Green’ were only mentioned by farmers. While items such as ‘Peace’, ‘Undulating landscape’, ‘Positive landscape’, ‘Health’, ‘Good for the soul’ and ‘Happiness’ were only Table 25: How the landscape contributes to human well-being. Items mentioned Response percentage (%) Forms Forest Kolpa River Hills Vineyards, wine Cultivated landscape Undulating landscape 2.94 2.94 2.94 2.94 2.94 2.94 Relationships Recreation, relaxation Naturalness, nature Peace Good air Beauty Home Pleasant landscape Joy Green Good water Positive landscape Health Happiness Good for the soul 14.71 11.77 11.77 11.77 5.88 2.94 2.94 2.94 2.94 2.94 2.94 2.94 2.94 2.94 mentioned by resident non-farmers. ‘Naturalness, nature’, ‘Good air’ and ‘Recreation, relaxation’ were equally mentioned by farmers and resident non-farmers. The majority of the landscape forms men­tioned were noted by farmers. Resident non-farmers seem to give higher importance to intangible relationships. 4. What are the characteristics of this landscape that distinguish this place from other landscapes? Withthisquestionweexpectedthattherespondentswouldmentionitemssuchasnature(e.g.,birch trees,proteus,dolines),ethnic(e.g.,Uskoks),culturological(e.g.,traditionsofworkingindolines,dialects) and historical contexts. Respondents mentioned from 2 to 11 different characteristics of their landscape that make it dis­tinct from other landscapes (on average 4.8 items per respondent), from a total of 33 different items (Figure 42, Table 26). Onemightthinkthatwhenrespondentsmentionedcharacteristicsoftheirlandscapesuchas‘Remote’, ‘Absenceoflargefactories/industry’,‘Absenceofmasstourism’and‘Notwelldeveloped’theyweremeant asnegativeaspects,howeverthesewereactuallyexpressedaspositivecharacteristicsoftheirlandscape. Themajorityoftherespondentsansweredthattheregiongainsfromlowdevelopment,thatitisanadvan­tagefortheregiontobelessdevelopedbyprotectingnaturalareasfrombeingdestroyedfordevelopment. Respondentsalsorefertohumancharacteristicswhiletalkingaboutthecharacteristicsoftheirland­scape,suchas‘Modesty’,‘Hospitality’,‘Benevolence’and‘Modernandsustainablementality’,expressing anthropocentric values. More frequently mentioned distinct characteristics of the landscapes in Bela krajina were ‘Karstic terrain’, ‘Litter raking forests’ and ‘Absence of large factories/industry’. Table 26: Characteristics of the landscape that distinguish it from other places. Characteristics of the landscape Response percentage (%) Karstic terrain 6.9 Litter raking forests Absence of large factories/industry Hills 6.9 6.9 5.2 Remote 5.2 Enclosed by natural barriers Hospitality Preserved nature, biotopes Modesty Kolpa River 5.2 5.2 5.2 3.5 3.5 Clean nature 3.5 Not well developed Dolines, cultural dolines 3.5 3.5 Wine-growing and wine tasting Climate 3.5 1.7 Livestock, sheep Poor road infrastructure 1.7 1.7 Benevolence 1.7 Characteristics of the landscape Response percentage (%) Modern and sustainable mentality 1.7 Beech forests 1.7 Uneven surface 1.7 Not excessively settled 1.7 Public access to nature 1.7 Endemic black olm 1.7 Preserved traditions 1.7 Good infrastructure 1.7 Safe for tourism 1.7 Good gastronomy 1.7 Cultural events 1.7 Diversity 1.7 Absence of mass tourism 1.7 Cultural landscape 1.7 Certified tourism 1.7 ‘Karsticterrain’,‘Hills’and‘Litterrakingforests’werethemostoftenmentionedcharacteristicsamong natureprotectionstakeholders.Tourismstakeholderscommonlymentionedthat‘Absenceoflargefac­tories/industry’ is one characteristic of the region that makes it distinct from other places. Table 27: Characteristics of the landscape mentioned by nature protection stakeholders and tourism stakeholders and the relative percentage difference between both groups of stakeholders. Characteristics of the landscape Percentage mentioned by Percentage mentioned by professionals of nature protection tourism professionals Climate 100.0 – Preserved nature, biotopes 50.0 50.0 Karstic terrain 75.0 25.0 Hills 100.0 – Dolines, cultural dolines 100.0 – Litter raking forests 75.0 25.0 Livestock, sheep 100.0 – Remote 66.7 33.3 Enclosed by natural barriers 66.7 33.3 Poor road infrastructure 100.0 – Modesty 50.0 50.0 Hospitality 33.3 66.7 Benevolence 100.0 – Modern and sustainable mentality 100.0 – Kolpa River 50.0 50.0 Beech forests 100.0 – Uneven surface 100.0 – Clean nature – 100.0 Characteristics of the landscape Percentage mentioned by Percentage mentioned by professionals of nature protection tourism professionals Not excessively settled – 100.0 Absence of large factories/industry 25.0 75.0 Public access to nature – 100.0 Cultural landscape – 100.0 Endemic black olm – 100.0 Preserved traditions – 100.0 Good infrastructure – 100.0 Safe for tourism – 100.0 Good gastronomy – 100.0 Cultural events – 100.0 Wine-growing and wine tasting – 100.0 Diversity – 100.0 Absence of mass tourism – 100.0 Not well developed 50.0 50.0 Certified tourism – 100.0 AscanbeseeninTable27,someaspectsofthelandscapeareonlymentionedbyonegroupofstake­holders.Thiscouldshowtheimportanceofdifferentfeaturesofthelandscapefordifferentstakeholders. Natureprotectionstakeholdersmentionedmoreformsofthelandscape(e.g.,karsticterrain,hills,etc.), while tourism stakeholders seem to have a more holistic view of the landscape and its characteristics. 5. Hasthelandscapechangedfromthepastuntilnow?Hasitchangedforbetterorworse,howandwhy? 90.6% of the respondents responded that the landscape had changed from the past until the pre­sent, whilst the remaining respondents said that the landscape had not suffered changes. From those respondents who affirmed that the landscape had changed, their opinion varies considerably regard­ing the types of change: if the change was for the better or for the worse (Table 28). Thepercentageofrespondentswhomentionedthatthelandscapehadchangedfortheworse(34.5%) is not significantly different from the percentage of respondents who mentioned that landscape had changed for the better (27.6%) (Table 28, Figure 43). The answers given by the respondents regarding the ways the landscape had changed were grouped according to the probable direction of landscape change, and are presented in Table 29. Note that these groups were not created by the respondents but by the author; the answers were grouped in order to analyse and understand them. Alltheresidentnon-farmers,professionalofnatureprotectionandtourismprofessionalsmentioned that the landscape had changed from the past, as they remembered it. 85.7% of the farmers mentioned Table 28: Percentage of respondents who mentioned the occurrence of landscape changes. Response percentage (%) Landscape changed for the better 27.6 Landscape changed for the worse 34.5 Some things in the landscape changed for the better, others changed for the worse 20.7 I do not know if the landscape changed for the better or the worse 17.2 that the landscape had changed as they remembered, whilst 14.3% thought otherwise. Representatives oflocalgovernmentsweredivided,66.7%mentionedthatthelandscapehadchanged,whilsttheremain­ing 33.3% affirmed that the landscape had not changed. Changes associated with the abandonment of agricultural land and overgrowth were considered negative(Table29)bythemajorityoftherespondents,andasimilarresultwasalsoobtainedbyGantar and Golobic (2015). Regarding whether landscape change had been for the better or for the worse, the opinion of local stakeholders is divided (Table 30). Table 29: Directions of landscape change according to respondents, grouped by subject matter. Change in society and/ Abandonment of Modernisation of Industry development or economy traditional practices agriculture • Reduced job • Fewer people engaged • Land improvement and • Higher development opportunities in agriculture hydro meliorations • Increaseininfrastructure • Worsened relationship • Less agricultural • Modern agriculture • Increaseinbuilt-upareas between local production • Better vineyards/ • Cleaner industry communities and • Increase in forested better wine • More industry municipalities areas • Larger land plots • Increase in technology • Less connection • Increase in overgrown • Better machinery • Decrease in green areas among locals areas • Different ways of • Worse quality of • Worsened economy • Increase in naturalness farming environment • Increase in the number and biodiversity • Increase in farm land of tourists • Less mills • Less crop diversity • Increase of the water level Table 30: Landscape changes according to stakeholder group, regarding type of change. Farmers Resident non-farmers Professionals of nature protection Tourism professionals Representatives of local governments Landscape changed for the better. 33.3% 14.3% 25.0% 37.5% 25.0% Landscape changed for the worse. 66.7% 14.3% 50.0% 37.5% / Some things in the landscape changed for the better, others changed for the worse. I do not know if the landscape changed for the better or the worse. / / 42.8% 28.6% / 25.0% 12.5% 12.5% 50.0% 25.0% 6. What are the main factors that influence landscape change? The respondents mentioned 21 different factors that they believe influence landscape changes in Bela krajina (Table 31). Table 31: Factors that influence landscape change. Response percentage (%) Economy 12.5% Policy 10.8% Abandonment of agricultural use 7.1% Agriculture 7.1% Emigration 7.1% Human desires and needs 7.1% Agricultural policy 5.3% Climate 5.3% Industry 5.3% Ageing of the population 3.6% Demography 3.6% Demographic policies 3.6% Fragmented landscape, land plots 3.6% Infrastructure 3.6% People engaged in other activities 3.6% Chemicals used in vineyards 1.8% Communist policy after 2nd World War 1.8% Lack of innovation 1.8% Lazy attitude 1.8% Municipal policy 1.8% Awareness 1.8% The factor that influences landscape change with the highest response percentage was ‘Economy’ with 12.5%, followed by ‘Policy’ with 10.7% (Figure 44, Table 31). However, as we can see in Table 31, other factors related to ‘Policy’ were mentioned, such as, ‘Agricultural policy’, ‘Demographic policies’, ‘Municipal policy’ and ‘Communist policy after 2nd World War’. If we include these factors in the item ‘Policy’thentheresponsepercentageis23.3%andthusthiswouldbethemostmentioneditem.Therefore, the responses were grouped according to their meanings, as different mentioned factors can actually mean similar things (Table 32), so the number of factors that influence landscape change was reduced to 14 (Figure 45). Table 32: Factors that influence landscape change grouped according to similar meanings. Mentioned factors Response percentage (%) Policies 23.3% Demography 14.3% Economy 12.5% Abandonment of agricultural use 7.1% Agriculture 7.1% Human desires and needs 7.1% Climate 5.3% Industry 5.3% Mentioned factors Response percentage (%) Fragmented landscape, land plots Infrastructure 3.6% 3.6% Lazy attitude, Lack of innovation People engaged in other activities Chemicals used in vineyards Awareness 3.6% 3.6% 1.8% 1.8% According to Table 32, the factor that influences landscape change with the highest response was ‘Policies’ (23.3%), followed by ‘Demography’ (14.3%) and ‘Economy’ (12.5%). Table 33: Factors that influence landscape change according to the group of stakeholders that mentioned them. Factors that influence landscape change Farmers Resident non-farmers Professionals of nature protection Tourism professionals Representatives of local governments Abandonment of agricultural use 25.0% / 50.0% 25.0% / Industry / 33.3% 33.3% 33.3% / Factors that influence landscape change Farmers Resident non-farmers Professionals of nature Tourism professionals Representatives of local protection governments Lazy attitude, Lack of innovation / / 100.0% / / Policies 30.8% 15.4% 7.6% 30.8% 15.4% Demography 25.0% 12.5% / 25.0% 37.5% Fragmented landscape, land plots 50.0% / / / 50.0% Infrastructure 50.0% / / / 50.0% People engaged in other activities 50.0% 50.0% / / / Human desires and needs 25.0% / 25.0% 25.0% 25.0% Climate 33.3% / 33.3% 33.3% / Agriculture / 25.0% 25.0% / 50.0% Economy 14.2% 28.6% / 28.6% 28.6% Chemicals used in vineyards / 100.0% / / / Awareness / / / 100.0% / 7. What role do you play in landscape management? 27 out of 32 respondents claimed they play a role in landscape management. 5 out of 32 respon­dents mentioned that they do not play any role in landscape management, all of them resident non-farmers. Nevertheless, they revealed some ways in which they see themselves indirectly involved in landscape management. A total of 18 different identified roles or ways in managing the landscape were mentioned by the respondents (Table 34). The most often mentioned role in managing the landscape was ‘Cultivating the land, mowing grass’. Managers of protected areas (Kolpa Landscape Park and Lahinja Landscape Park) affirmed that theroletheyplay inlandscape managementismanagementofthelandscape parks. From the analy­sisoftheanswersgiven,weobservedthatthecreationofmanagementplansforbothlandscapeparks in Bela krajina has been done, however, neither of these have been implemented. The management plan for the Kolpa Landscape Park is still waiting to be approved by the government. The other has not been implemented because the manager of the Lahinja Landscape Park does not feel the need to implement it; actually, according to this source of information, management of this park is not beingcarried out at all at the present time (MI 2016). The manager of the Kolpa Landscape Park men­tioned that the problem they face in managing the park is that they do not manage their own land but mainly privateland. Nevertheless, they try to regulate someregimesto maintain favourable sta­tus for both species and habitats, whilst not dismissing cultural traditions (BG 2016). The manager of the Lahinja Landscape Park affirmed that together with the Institute of the Republic of Slovenia for Nature Conservation, they have prepared guidelines for the park, especially guidelines for tourism (LB 2016). Other stakeholders from nature protection in the region mentioned that their role can be seen on one side as maintaining the natural values of the region, and on the other side as trying to actively pro­tecttheenvironmentbystronglyopposingsomeactivitiesthatnegativelyimpacttheenvironment,such as the Bio-gas plant in Crnomelj. Tourism professionals operating within the borders of the Lahinja Landscape Park feel they have animportantroleinthemanagementofthelandscape,whetherbyencouraginglocalstomaintaintheir activities in the landscape, such as by cutting grasslands in order to prevent overgrowth and to main-taintheappearanceoftheirlandscape(alsomakingitmoreattractivetotourists).Theyhavealsoshown concern as the manager of the Lahinja Landscape Park is not active in carrying out his role in man-agingthisprotectedarea.Theyalsomentionedthattheylacksupportfromthegovernment(VV2016). Tourism stakeholders operating in the Kolpa Landscape Park affirmed that they see their role in managing the landscape in the creation of infrastructure for tourism, as tourism also affects landscape management. Tourism stakeholders from the Metlika Municipality feel that they have an impact on landscape development and management, even if not directly; they actively collaborate in initiatives thatinfluencethemanagementofthelandscapes,suchasbeingpartoftheTouristAssociationofSlovenia whichencourages,rewardsandassessestheorderlinessofthelandscape,andinthiswaymaintainsthe condition of the countryside and preservation of the natural and cultural heritage. Allfarmersmentionedthattheymanagethelandscapeinadirectway,bycultivatingtheland.They all affirmed that the landscape would be abandoned without them and their activities. »Farming is a form of struggle against overgrowth« (JK, farmer 2016). The majority of farmers claimed that they maintain the appearance of their particular landscape, because they think it is beautiful. Similar statements were given by farmers from rural landscapes in alpine areas of Slovenia (Gantar and Golobic 2015). Representatives of local governments mentioned that local governments have a special role in managingthelandscape. Theytrytoensuresuitableconditionsforthenormaldevelopmentoftourism, Table 34: Roles of local stakeholders in landscape management. Role in landscape management Response percentage (%) Cultivating the land, mowing grass 50.0 Collaborating in initiatives that involve the landscape 16.7 Creating of management plans and guidelines for protected areas 16.7 Bee-keeping 16.7 Building infrastructure and facilities that maintain a clean environment 11.1 Employing people 11.1 Giving financial support to maintain the cultural landscape 11.1 Managing protected areas 11.1 Raising public awareness 11.1 Building infrastructure for tourism 5.6 Maintaining the natural and cultural values of the region 5.6 Elaborating spatial planning documents and policies that regulate the use of the land 5.6 Encouraging locals to maintain the cultural landscape 5.6 Keeping the environment clean 5.6 Regulating land improvements and land consolidation 5.6 Restorating water sources 5.6 Tackling environmental issues 5.6 Taking decisions or making recommendations on the changes of rural areas 5.6 the economy, and everyday life through spatial planning documents, policies, land improvements, and with compensation and financial subsidies to support activities that maintain the cultivated land­scape. Themajorityoftheresidentnon-farmers(71.4%)saidthattheyarenotinvolvedinlandscapeman­agement, however some of them mentioned their indirect ways of managing the landscape through employmentintheregion,orbyallowingtheirneighbourstocultivatetheirlandplotsthatwouldoth­erwisenotbeused.Theremainingresidentnon-farmers,representing28.6%oftheresponses,affirmed that they play a role in managing the landscape through cultivating their land plots, being engaged in associations,andbeingactivelyinvolvedinprojectsthatbringbenefitstopeoplewholiveintheregion (e.g., day care for children, allowing children to study in local schools while their parents work away from their village) and in this way maintain the local population of the villages. 8. What do you consider to be a valuable landscape? Themajorityoftherespondentsmentionedthevaluesoftheirlandscaperatherthanwhattheyvalue in a landscape. Others said that Bela krajina is a good example of a valuable landscape. 26 respondents mentioned31differentaspectsofavaluablelandscape(Table35).Themostoftenmentioneditemwas ‘Provides food’ (12.6%), followed by ‘Cultivated landscape’ (10.1%) (Figure 46). To analyse the answers to this question according to the stakeholder group, we took into consid­eration the 5 most frequently mentioned items (Table 36). As a ‘Support for life’, the landscape is valuable for all stakeholders. All the 5 items (Column 1 in Table 36) mentioned as aspects of a valuable landscape are valued by professionals of nature protec­tion,althoughthemostvaluableforthemisthe‘Provisionofwater’.The‘Provisionofrecreation/relaxation’ is mostly mentioned by resident non-farmers and tourism stakeholders, while no farmers mentioned it. Besides this aspect, the resident non-farmers mostly value the ‘Provision of food’ in a landscape. All stakeholders equally mentioned that a valuable landscape is a ‘Cultivated landscape’. Table 35: Values of the landscape as seen by local stakeholders. A valuable landscape: Response percentage (%) Provides food 12.6 Cultivated landscape 10.1 Supports life 8.8 Provides recreation, relaxation 6.2 Provides water 5.0 Diverse landscape 3.8 Has forests 3.8 Accessible for people (including tourists) 3.8 Clean nature 3.8 Preserved nature 3.8 Traditional landscape, traditions 3.8 Beautiful landscape 3.8 Offers tranquillity 2.5 Livestock, sheep 2.5 Provides nature and natural attractions 2.5 Fertile land 2.5 Offers quality of life 2.5 Provides tourism 1.3 Has litter raking forests 1.3 Benefits people 1.3 Place of birth 1.3 Cultural landscape 1.3 Hospitable 1.3 Adapted to development 1.3 Offers cultural events 1.3 Has appropriate infrastructure 1.3 Offers clean air 1.3 Table 36: The most frequently mentioned items regarding the value of the landscape and the relative importance of each to the different groups of stakeholders. Aspects of a valuable landscape Farmers Resident Professionals Tourism non-farmers of nature professionals protection Supports life 28.6% 28.6% 28.6% 14.2% Provides water 25.0% 25.0% 50.0% / Provides recreation/relaxation / 40.0% 20.0% 40.0% Provides food 30.0% 40.0% 10.0% 20.0% Cultivated landscape 25.0% 25.0% 25.0% 25.0% 9. Do you think that agricultural activities affect the appearance of this landscape? All 19 respondents in this case, without exception, stated that agriculture affects the appearance of theirlandscape.However,theyshowedpreferencesforamosaiclandscaperatherthanamono-cultural landscaperesultingfromintensiveagriculture.Heretheyalsomentionedthemanagementoflitterrak­ing forests, as a traditional way of farming and as an example of agricultural impact on the landscape. »It is just part of the landscape here, the agriculture, and it has to be, otherwise it would not be this landscape« (JG, marketeer 2016). There was no different opinion to this question among different stakeholders. 10. Do you recognise the overgrowth of the agricultural landscape? 89.5% of the respondents recognised that the agricultural landscape of their municipality is over-grown(Table37).However,oftheseapproximately30.0%affirmedthatcurrentlythisprocesshaseither stopped or the overgrown areas have started to be cleared again. This is mostly due to subsidies pro­vided by the government, but some affirm that subsidies will not solve the issue of overgrowth. Themainreasonsmentionedfortheincreaseinovergrownareasare:1)ageingpopulation,2)emi­gration of the younger generation out of the region, and 3) the younger generation’s lack of interest in cultivating the land. It was also mentioned that the links between farmers, their products and the mar­kets are missing. Agricultural cooperatives that served in the past as the link between farmers and the marketarenownon-existent.Inthepastthesecooperativesguaranteedpurchasesofproducts,butthere werealsoothernegativeissuesandthereforethereisstillsomeapprehensionandmistrustamongfarm­ers regarding this. 10.5% of the respondents affirmed that the agricultural areas are not overgrown. Table 37: Differences in responses from the three participant groups of stakeholders: farmers, resident non-farmers and local government representatives. Farmers Resident Representatives of non-farmers local governments Overgrowth is visible 21.05% 21.05% 21.05% Overgrowth is visible but has been reduced 10.53% 10.53% 5.26% There is no overgrowing occurring 5.26% / 5.26% Bee-keepers (2 respondents, among farmers) claimed that overgrowing of the agricultural land-scapeisbetterforbees,althoughtheyarealsoawarethatitisnotpositivefortheregion,aswellasbeing unsightly.Farmersaffirmedthatsubsidieshelptocombattheovergrowingofagriculturalland.Allstake-holders consistently identified the demographical situation of the region (ageing population, out-migrations) as the main driver of overgrowing of the cultural landscapes of Bela krajina. 11. Do the karst features of the landscape influence your activities? Almost half of the respondents (46.2%) answered that karst features of the landscape do influence theiractivities,whiletheother53.8%affirmedthatkarstfeaturesofthelandscapedonotinfluencetheir activities. Of the respondents who affirmed that karst features of the landscape influence their activities, one third claimed that karst features negatively influence their activities, one third claimed that karst fea­tures are positive in this sense, and one third affirmed that karstic features have benefits as well as drawbacks (Table 38, Figure 47). The influences of karst landscape features on the activities or lives of the respondents mentioned are specified in Table 39. Table 38: How karst features of the landscape influence respondents’ activities. Response percentage (%) Negatively 33.3 Positively 33.3 It has benefits and drawbacks 33.3 Table 39: Benefits and drawbacks of karst features of the landscape that influence people’s activities. Benefits Drawbacks • Enough groundwater • Harder to work with machinery • Drinking water • Less arable land • Very fertile soil • Shallow soil • Less need for fertilisers • Lack of flat surfaces • In the past caves were used as shelter • Influence the type of farming* • Dolines have the best land and everything grows well there • A lot of stones • Speleology • Steep areas • Picking mushrooms • Smaller land plots • Harder to cultivate • Lack of water in summer months • Expensive to manage • Susceptible to fires in summer months *Karstic areas that are not possible to farm using machinery have been converted to meadows and pastures. 57.1%offarmersclaimedthatkarstfeaturesinfluencetheiractivities,whilst42.9%affirmedthatkarst featuresoftheirlandscapedonotinfluencetheiractivities.Itisimportanttonotethatthis42.9%includes bee-keepersandfarmersfromGriblje,asettlementknownforitsflatnessandarablelands,andthuswith higherpotentialforagriculture.66.7%ofresidentnon-farmersstatedthatkarstfeaturesoftheirlandscape do not influence their activities/their lives, while 33.3% affirmed otherwise. Of those who claimed that karst featuresinfluencetheiractivities, allmentionedthattheyareinfluencedinapositive way. 12. Do you think that the karst characteristics of this landscape influence local development? 12(46.2%)outof26respondentsstatedthatthekarstcharacteristicsoftheirlandscapedonotinflu­ence development (Figure 48). 11 (42.3%) out of 26 respondents affirmed that the karst characteristics influencelocaldevelopment.Ofthese,2respondentssaiditinfluencesitinapositiveway;5mentioned that it is more difficult for agriculture, however they also mentioned positive aspects ofthekarst land-scapeandevensaidthatitcanbeusedasatourismattraction;andthe4remainingonlystatedthenegative aspects (although one of them said that in the landscape where she lives, karst features are not so evi­dentbutprobablyinfluencedevelopmentinotherpartsofBelakrajina).Finally,3(11.5%)respondents out of 26 said they do not have enough knowledge to opine on this topic. Figure48:Graphicalrepresentationofanswersregardingtheinfluenceofkarstfeaturesonlocaldevelopment. Table40:Differences inresponsesfromthefour participantgroups of stakeholders, regarding theinfluence of karst features on local development. Farmers Resident Professionals Tourism non-farmers of nature professionals protection Yes 11.54% 15.38% 7.69% 7.69% No 11.54% 7.69% 7.69% 19.23% I do not know 3.85% 3.85% / 3.85% The ways that karst landscape influences local development mentioned were: it hampers agricul­ture, hampers the building of houses and other infrastructure, and it is vulnerable to pollution. The respondents talked about the benefits of the karst landscape while discussing its influence on local development, and mentioned the following points: ‘the land fragmentation gives the landscape charm’, ‘the undulating landscape is beautiful’, ‘we have hot summers and early springs so agricultur­al products grow fast’, ‘we have a lot of water’, ‘life is good here’, ‘it is attractive for tourism’ and ‘maybe Bela krajina is so special and local people are so hospitable because of the karst characteristics’. The majority of the respondents do not see karst features as obstacles to their work or life, or any negative influence on local development, in fact they claimed that they are used to it, and work and live according to these conditions. »Thosewhoarenotcapableofcopingwiththelandscapewheretheyliveshouldlookforanotherplace« (BR, tourism professional 2016). Surprisingly,thegroupofstakeholderswhostatedmostoftenthatkarstcharacteristicsoftheland­scape influence local development were resident non-farmers (Table 40), whereas perhaps one would expect that farmers would mention the problems they encounter in working in karst landscapes. 2 out of 7 resident non-farmers mentioned that karst features positively influence local development. Tourismstakeholdersingeneralseekarstcharacteristicsasanattractionfortourism,andthereforesuch characteristics can also influence in a positive way. With this question we realised that when talking aboutinfluences,themajorityofrespondentsperceiveinfluencesasobstacles(orasconstraints),there­fore the respondents who affirmed karst features do not influence development claimed that if it such features do have any influence, they can only be positive. 13. Do you think that nature protection influences your activities? 61.5%oftherespondentsstatedthatnatureprotectiondoesnotinfluencetheiractivitiesandtheremain­ing38.5%claimedthatitdoes(Table41).Oftherespondentswhoclaimednatureprotectioninfluencestheir activities,40%mentionedthatitinfluencesinapositiveway,while60%affirmedthatitisnegativelyconnected. Respondents who affirmed that nature protection influences their activities talked about restric­tionsinlanduse,restrictionsforbuildingnewfacilities,hinderedagriculturalactivities,andevendeclared that nature protection in the form of landscape parks or Natura 2000 sites is an artificial creation of the government that just brings privileges to a restricted group of people. Overwhelmingly, 66.7% of therespondentswhoclaimednatureprotectionnegativelyinfluencestheiractivities,alsosaidthatthey donotfeeltheinfluencesofnatureprotectionareasortheyliveoutsidesuchprotectedareas.Therefore, although they were talking about the negative influences that nature protection is supposed to have, in actual fact it is unlikely that they had encountered any such issues/restrictions. Allresidentnon-farmerswhorespondedthatnatureprotectionaffectedtheiractivitiesclaimedthat it affected them in a positive sense. Farmers expressed concerns regarding the restrictions that they face due to the conservation of designated protected areas. Farmers advocate that people who live and workwithindesignatedprotectedareasshouldhavesomekindofprivilegestocompensatefortherestric­tions they face. The majority of the inhabitants of the region support the protected status of certain areas, such as Lahinja Landscape Park and Kolpa Landscape Park. Table 41: Differences inresponses fromthetwo respondentgroups of stakeholders, regarding theinfluence of nature protection on their activities. Farmers Resident non-farmers Yes 23.0% 15.4% No 30.8% 30.8% 14. Do you think that nature protection influences local development? Only1outof12respondentsaffirmedthatnatureprotectioncanhaveanegativeinfluenceonlocal developmentiflocalinhabitantsarenotinvolvedintheprotectionprocess(Table42).Thisrespondent arguedthatwhenthestateorlocalauthoritiesassignanareatobeprotected,theyusuallyforgettoimple­ment a development program which includes locals. When the respondents discussed the influences nature protection brings to local development, they mentionedthatnatureprotectionisneededinordertokeepthewaterandsoilclean,andBelakrajinagreen. »Asanatureconservationist,Iwouldalmostcertainlysaythat(natureprotection)positivelyaffects(the localdevelopment). […]Therestrictionsthatarewrittenintheregulationsorordinancestoensurenature protectionneedtobeunderstood.Thosewhowishtotakeadvantageofnatureandharmitthroughexploita­tion,willnotunderstand,andtheywillsee(natureprotection)asanobstacle,asabarrier.Ithinkthatthere isevidencethatinthisareasomepeoplehavealreadyfoundwaystoprofitfromtheprotectedareasandto move forwards. I personally do not see regulations for nature protection as obstacles to management and development here, even if halfofBela krajina is considered to be protectedor as a Natura 2000 area. This isbecausetherulesareclear.Wherethedevelopmentofindustryispossible,thereislessnature.Wherenature is preserved, there is no place for dirty industry« (MI, professional of nature protection 2016). »If development destroys nature then there is no development« (AK, tourism professional 2016). The majority of the respondents affirmed that nature protection promotes local development by attracting tourism to the region. Although the respondents are aware of the benefits of nature protec­tion they also mentioned that there are minor issues connected to it such as: 1) there should be some kind of compensation for local people who live in protected areas to overcome the restrictions they face; 2) Natura 2000 is not well known among local inhabitants, but was created at a political level; 3) a huge amount of Slovenian territory is listed under Natura 2000, if this ecological network were con-finedtosmallerareaswithstricterprotectionandregulations,thenNatura2000areascouldbepromoted as special landscapes. Local stakeholders are unwilling to consider the existence of large industries in theregionthatwouldharmtheirlandscape.Theyseethedevelopmentoftheregioninsmall-scaleindus-tries and tourism. The region has an enormous potential for tourism that is not being fully explored; although locals do not wish to have mass tourism in the region. Tourismstakeholdersparticularlyseetheprotectedareasasanopportunitytodeveloptourisminthe region,butalwaystakingintoaccounttheprotectionofnature.OnerespondentfromSemicsaidthattourism thereisnotwellpromoted,andthereisgreatpotentialbutitisnotbeingcapitalisedon.Touristswhovisit attractionsinSemicareusuallytherefor a shorttimeand donot bringmuch profit tothemunicipality. Table 42: Differences inresponsesfromthetwo respondentgroups ofstakeholders,regarding the influence of nature protection on local development. Professionals of nature protection Tourism professionals Yes, positively 8.3% 50.0% Yes, negatively / 8.3% No 25.0% 8.3% 15. In your opinion is this landscape developed? Why? Themajorityoftherespondents,whendiscussingthedevelopmentoftheirlandscape,talkedabout Bela krajina in general. Only two respondents referred to their particular landscape. 16.7% stated that the region is taking steps towards development, eco-farms are blossoming in the region, some young people are returning with new business ideas, and tourism opportunities are quite ambitious (Table 43, Figure 49). 27.8% of the respondents affirmed that the region, as far as the landscape is capable of handling, is developed enough. They mentioned that the region has the capacity to be self-sufficient regarding food, the Kolpa River is cleaner than in the past and there is a trend (although slow) of young people returning to the region. Slightly more than half of the respondents (55.5%; Table 43, Figure 49) claimed that although the region has a lot of development opportunities, it is still not developed enough, and this can be seen in the statistics that show that the region is stagnating and by the number of people who are still leaving theregion.Themainreasonsmentionedforthestagnationoftheregionare:1)lackofindustrytoemploy young people; 2) development has been directed to industry, which has not been successful, and peo­ple have not invested in their own products; 3) centralised management, where all the money is taken to the capital, Ljubljana; 4) local inhabitants are too passive and need to be pushed to move forward; 5) misguided policies that financially support otherwise healthy people who could work; and 6) lack of self-initiative and self-employment from inhabitants in finding new opportunities. Thereisageneralopinionthattheregionhashighdevelopmentpotential,especiallythroughtourism and small scale industry. Regardingthedifferencesamongthestakeholdergroups,representativesoflocalgovernments,apart from the municipality they are part of, share the same opinion and affirmed that the study region is not developed enough. 50% of tourism stakeholders stated that the region is developed enough, 25% Table 43: Level of development of the landscape according to local stakeholders. Response percentage (%) Developed enough 27.8 Not developed enough 55.5 Developing 16.7 claimed it is not developed enough, and the remaining 25% affirmed that Bela krajina is developing. Among nature protection stakeholders the opinions about the development are somewhat different, as 50%statedthat theregionis not as developedas it shouldbe,25%claimedthat Bela krajina is devel­oped enough and 25% that is on the way towards development. 16. What is the goal of the regional development process? The goals mentioned by the respondents towards regional development were as follows: • Promotion of agriculture; • Promotion and development of tourism; • Provision of infrastructure for villages; • Development of industry. We found some differences among answers from representatives of different municipalities. Nevertheless,representatives of thethreelocal governments mentionedthat theirgoal was topromote agricultural activities in the municipality. Representatives from Metlika and Crnomelj emphasised the promotionoftourism,whichwasnotmentionedbytherepresentativesoftheSemicMunicipality.Semic representatives noted that their goal in the development of industry was to retain local people in the municipality and to stop migration to other regions. All three municipalities share the samegoalof improving the quality of life of the local population. 17. What problems have you encountered in reaching this goal? A wide range of the problems mentioned by the representatives from local governments include the following: • Gapsbetweenpoliciesfornaturalmanagementandwhatispractisedontheground(e.g.,certaincrops cannotbecultivatedthrougheco-farmingastheendproductisnotadesirableone;providingincentives tousecertaintechniquesorculturesthatarenotsuitableforcertainenvironments,resultingindegradation); • Lack of road infrastructure that influences the development of the economy and tourism; • Financial issues; • Difficultiesinchangingthestatusofagriculturallandtodevelopmentland,whichisespeciallyimpor­tantinthecaseofovergrownagriculturallandplotsthatarenotbeingusedforagriculturalpurposes and where the construction of buildings is also not permitted; • Each year the municipality gets less funding from the national government; • Problems in purchasing land (to expand industrial zones) as landowners live abroad. As each municipality has different development goals it is difficult to find common issues they encounterinreachingthesegoals.However,representativesfromtheSemicandCrnomeljmunicipalities shared concerns regarding the reduction of funds that are being allocated to the municipalities, and that the landscape (especially agricultural areas) is usually not on the priority list of the local govern­ments when finances are being allocated. 18. Do you think that it is important to involve local stakeholders in decision-making processes on landscape management? The answers to this question were unanimous, with no differences among municipalities. All the representatives of local governments affirmed that it is important to involve local stakeholders in the decision-making processes concerning landscape management. They also remarked that without the local population and NGOs it would be difficult to plan, because the decision-making process should be a bottom-upprocess, arising from the needs of the local population. Therefore, local governments, withtheirprofessionalknowledge,shouldtrytogetaconsensuswithlocalcommunitiestosatisfytheir needs and find solutions together. »We, as representatives of the municipality, are here to serve people« (BJ, representative of local gov­ernment 2016). 19. Are local stakeholders involved in the decision-making processes on landscape practices or management? How? The representatives of local governments generally affirmed that local stakeholders are involved in the decision-making processes on landscape practices or management, and are represented in deci-sion-making bodies such as: local community councils, diverse organisations and local political parties. Nevertheless, representatives of local governments expressed concerns regarding the partici­pation oflocal populations in the decision-making processes on landscape practices or management. They mentioned that more efforts could be made in order to involve the local population, and there is probably not enough communication between local governments and local populations, or there is not the right communication, so local governments should have people in the field who are in contact with local populations. However, there is a lack of staff in local governments that could carry out this function. It was also mentioned that local communities tend to get involved more if they understand what is going on, or if they see the proposals and sketches of the plans. We found differences in responses among the municipalities. Representatives from the Metlika Municipalityaffirmedthatthereisatrendofapathyamongthelocalpublic,localcommunitiesarebecom­ing less and less active, and they feel the need to financially support activities in local communities in order to attract their interest and participation. RepresentativesfromtheCrnomeljMunicipalityaffirmthatlocalcommunitiesarenotactiveenough, they are only active when they see some potential benefit, or when they have vested interests. On the other hand, representatives from the Semic Municipality stated that the local population is quite active and they participate in decision-making processes, and the municipality always has an open-door policy for the local population and do not have strict consultation times for the public. 20. Do you see the increase in self-sufficiency in food as an employment opportunity for rural development? 85% of the respondents affirmed that the increase in self-sufficiency in food could be a solution to unemployment rates, especially in rural areas. 15% of the respondents do not see the increase in self-sufficiency in food as an employment opportunity for rural development (Figure 50). Themainreasonsmentionedbytherespondentswhodonotseeself-sufficiencyinfoodasanemploy­mentopportunityare:1)self-sufficiencyinfoodisnotanemploymentsolutionbecausewedonothave customerstosellourproductstohere;2)wedonothaveenoughlandwithsuitableconditionstoachieve that here; and 3) this is an illusion, the consumer should be educated first in order for the whole cir-cletoworkproperly,howeverwecannottellpeopletobuysomethingfourtimesmoreexpensiveifthey can buy the same product for much less in a supermarket. The respondents who see the increase in self-sufficiency in food as a job opportunity in rural areas talked about the capability of their municipality and region to be self-sufficient. Around 60% of them stated that Bela krajina has a high potential to be self-sufficient in food, as it has enough surface area and a good climate to produce everything that local people need. This can be seen in statements from the participants, such as: »We can be self-sufficient with food just here. We can produce everything we want in Bela krajina…« (VV, tourism professional 2016). »IthinkBelakrajinacouldbeself-sufficient,accordingtoitssizeandtoitsclimate,inordertoproduce everything we need« (GA, representative of local government 2016). Lessthan18%donotbelievetheregioncanbeself-sufficientinfoodandtheremainingrespondents did not mention such self-sufficiency. Even though the majority of the respondents believe that self-sufficiency in food could be a solu­tiontothehighunemploymentrateintheregion,theyalsomentionedsomeaspectsthatcouldbeobstacles toputtingthisintopractice.Thementionedaspectsare:1)thehigherpricesofthelocalproducts,result­ingfromthedifficultfarmingconditionsoftheregion;2)thesharingofproductsamongdifferentpeople would be difficult in Bela krajina as the locals do not want to show that they lack something; 3) peo­ple’s mentality has to be changed; and,4) misguided agricultural policies that should support the local products so that the final price could be affordable to everyone, but fail to do so. Althoughnodifferencescanbeseenamongthedifferentstakeholders,thedistributionoftheanswers among the different stakeholders can be seen in Table 44. Table 44: Differences in responses from the three respondent groups of stakeholders regarding food self-sufficiency. Farmers Resident Representatives non-farmers of local governments Yes 30% 30% 25% No 5% 5% 5% 21. How do you see this landscape in 2030? It was interesting to note that the answers to this question showed the preferences and interests of different stakeholders in the landscape, and also showed their concerns and their fears of change. Nevertheless, the main visions for their future landscape are: • Thelandscapewillchangeastherewillbemoreroadinfrastructure;althoughsomestakeholderssup-port the development of infrastructure, others say that it will be bad for the landscape; • People should continue to work hard to maintain the landscape; • The landscape should remain as it is now; • According to trends, the landscape will be more overgrown; • If there is no industry, there will be no job opportunities and young people will move away. Theobtainedanswersreflectthefearthatlocalstakeholdershaveoflosingtheircurrentlandscape, they also showed their concerns in losing young people. »Young people are the heart of this valley« (SŽ, professional of nature protection 2016). Thefutureofthelandscapeaccordingtotourismstakeholdersshouldbethemaintenanceofagreen, clean and preserved landscape, and people should keep working hard on this. Tourism stakeholders showed concerns regarding the development of new infrastructure in the region. Nature protection stakeholders expressedtheir desire for no change, and mentioned the potential of the region for tourism development. Representativesoflocalgovernmentsbelievethatthelandscapewillnotchangemuch,overgrowth will be stopped and the amount of cultivated land will increase; some also demonstrated a desire for small scale industry and for progress, while others mentioned that the region will be more self-suffi­cient, and the local population will eventually realise how important it is for their health and for the maintenance of the landscape. Farmers shared different visions of their future landscape. Some stated that small land plots would be abandoned and become overgrown, and the larger areas will be cultivated; they hope for the devel­opment of industry and creation of job opportunities to retain young people in the region; they want all villages to have small farms with cattle, and some affirmed that they would be satisfied if the land­scape remains at least as it is now. Resident non-farmers shared a more negative vision of the future landscape, the majority stated that the landscape will be even more overgrown than it is now, however some contended that it might be equally as cultivated as it is now. 3.3.2.2 General responses In using interviews, the qualitative analysis of the landscape features for land use and sustainable development gave us various insights into the local stakeholders’ perspectives of their landscapes. Farmers affirmedthattheirlocallandscapecontributestotheirwell-being.Ingeneral,theyargued that they play an important role in landscape management, and they feel proud to contribute to the maintenanceoftheculturallandscapesofBelakrajina.Yetsomecontendthatthelandscapeintherecent pastwasmoreabandonedthanitisatpresent,whilstotherssaidthatthelandscapeiscurrentlybecom­ing overgrown. The differences in the answers might be due to the farmers’ locations, as some areas aremoreovergrownwhilstothersareclearedandaresubjecttointervention(e.g.,Staritrg).Somefarm­ers expressed their concerns regarding the existence of large commercial areas in the region, selling non-local products, which they cannot compete with (offering lower prices, etc.), and pointing their fingers at national policies. They affirmed that karst landscape features influence the type of farming, mainlyduetothestoninessandshallowdepthofsoils.Thustheseinfluencelocaldevelopment,because the difficult farming conditions are leading to out-migration. On the other hand, they also said that karstlandscapesmayattracttourismtotheregion,andinthiswaykarstfeatureshaveapositiveimpact on the local development. We found differences in the answers of bee-keepers and other farmers. Bee­keepers said that karst features do not influence local development. This answer is understandable as bee-keepers are not directly affected by the agricultural constraints that karst features might pose. In addition, one farmer from Griblje said that karst features do not influence his activities or local devel­opment. This answer is reasonable; as the natural conditions around Griblje are more favourable for agriculture than other parts of the study region. As expected, and as has also been reported by other studies(e.g.,LampicandMrak2008;Mrak2008),themajorityoffarmersseenatureprotectionaslim­itingtheiractivities,astherearerestrictionsbutnotcompensationforpeoplewholiveandworkwithin thebordersofprotectedareas.Farmerssharedageneralvisionoftheirlandscapeinthefuture,itshould remain at least as it is now. Forresidentnon-farmerstheirgreenandcleanlandscape(characteristicsdescribedbythem)pos­itively affect their well-being, allowing for relaxation. Half of the resident non-farmers answered that they do not play any role in landscape management, while the other half said they play an indirect role throughtheirattitudesandideologies.Unanimously,residentnon-farmersdeclaredthatkarstfeatures donotinfluencetheiractivities.However,theiropinionisagaindividedregardingtheinfluenceofkarst features on local development. Some stated that such features do not have any influence on develop­ment, whilst others said that they do. This difference in opinion can be related to the heterogeneity of this group of stakeholders in regard to their age and professions, however profile data of the respon­dents was not acquired and thus this relation cannot be assessed. With regard to landscape changes, some resident non-farmers mentioned that changes are related to the improvement of infrastructure, andsometotheabandonmentofagriculturalpractices.Residentnon-farmersaffirmedthatnaturepro­tectiondoesnotinfluencetheiractivities,andjustonerespondentclaimedthatnatureprotectionpositively affects his activities, as he owns a restaurant which can benefit from tourism. They are very much in favourofnatureprotection,asthisisneededtopreservethenatureoftheregionandtoattracttourists. As with farmers, resident non-farmers would also like to keep their landscape as it is now. However, someareafraidthatovergrowthwillcontinue,whileotherssaidthatifthelandscapedoeschange,these changes will be minimal. Ingeneral,representativesoflocalgovernmentscommentedthatBelakrajinaisnotasdeveloped as it should be, especially when compared to other Slovenian regions. They mentioned that the main aspects of the underdeveloped landscape are the lack of employment, lack of basic infrastructure and lackofindustry.Theseanswersshowthattherepresentativesfromlocalgovernmentsmainlyseedevel­opment through a socio-economic point of view. They feel responsible to improve the current state of thelandscapethroughtheiractivities(e.g.,actingagainstovergrowthofagriculturallandbygivingfinan­cialincentives,sewagedisposal,andconstructionofawastewatertreatmentplant).Theanswersregarding the main drivers that lead to landscape changes were probably diverse because the respondents come fromdifferentdepartmentswithinthelocalgovernmentsandthushavedifferentopinions.Apartfrom one respondent, all the representatives of local governments mentioned the increase in self-sufficien­cyinfoodbeingapossiblesourceofemploymentopportunitiesinBelakrajina,andthemajoritystated that the region has the potential to be self-sufficient. Surprisingly, the only respondent who disagreed withthisvision,statingthatitwasanillusion,isanemployeeofthedepartmentofagriculture.Regarding the importance of involving local stakeholders in the decision-making processes, we found two posi­tions, on one side therepresentatives of local governments claimed that local stakeholders rarely show interestandrarelyparticipateindecision-makingprocesses,ontheothersidefarmersclaimedthattheir ideas and opinions are not taken into consideration. Thus we noted a lack of communication and mis-trustamongdifferentlocalstakeholders.Thelackoffinanceswasoneofthemostoftenmentionedissues whichlocalgovernmentsfaceinreachingtheirgoalstowardssustainabledevelopment.Acommonvision forthefutureofBelakrajina’slandscapesisthemaintenanceofcultivatedlandsandappealingtoyoung people to stay in the region. Professionals of nature protection stated that the landscapes of Bela krajina are valuable because they are rich and diverse. As expected, nature protection stakeholders see nature protection as posi­tively influencing local development. Interestingly, this is because they claim nature protection contributes to development through tourism. This group of stakeholders affirmed that karst features are positive elements of Bela krajina’s landscapes. Opinions regarding the development status of Bela krajina are divided in this case. While some contend that the region isdeveloped enough, others con­tend that it is lagging behind, mainly due to the centralisation of funds which are not reaching less developed regions of the country. Their visions of the future landscape are similar to other stakehold­ers, they wish for the landscape to be maintained as it is now and for increased tourism in the region. Tourism professionals affirmed that Bela krajina’s landscapes are valuable due to their diversity andnature,andtheseaspectsaretheonesthatmakeBelakrajina’slandscapesdifferentfromotherplaces. As nature protection stakeholders, this group also talked about the importance of nature and nature protection for the development of tourism in the region. In general, they do not see karst features as negativelyinfluencinglocaldevelopment,rathertheopposite.However,tourismstakeholdershaveamore negativevisionoftheirlandscape’sfuture,astheybelieveitwillbecomeevenmoreovergrown,andthere-fore wish for an increase in local awareness of the region’s qualities. Wedidnotfindsignificantdifferencesamongtheanswersfromrespondentsfromdifferentmunic­ipalities. Presumably, this is because respondents tended to talk more about Bela krajina as a whole, rather than their own locallandscapes, even though this opinion was asked for at the beginning of the interviews. We would like to point out two of Bela krajina’s landscape features that were mentioned by local stakeholders. It is well known that water is among the most appreciated landscape elements (Kaltenborn and Bjerke 2002) and this was also confirmed with this study, by the responses to ques­tions such as ‘What makes this landscape attractive?’ and ‘What do you consider to be a valuable landscape?’.RemotenessisalsoanothercharacteristicofBelakrajina.However,remotenessisperceived by people from Bela krajina as both an asset and a major liability, a view that was also put forward by Keller (2001). Some respondents said that remoteness and isolation are assets, which contribute to the preservation of the unspoilt nature in the region. Other respondents associated remoteness with con­straints of service delivery, communications and job opportunities. 3.3.3 Comparison of the results Theapproachinvolvedintegratingbothquantitativeandqualitativemethods.Thequalitativeeval­uationdiffersfromthequantitativeapproachinmanyrespects,oneofthembeingthelatter’semphasis on numbers. While the quantitative evaluation captured a large amount of information from a num­berofsources,andsoughttoobjectivelyusetheinterrelationshipstounderstandtheinfluenceoflandscape featuresonsustainabledevelopment,thequalitativeevaluationinvolvedlocalpeopleandincludedtheir insightstogenerateasubjectiveunderstandingofhowpeopleperceivethekarstlandscapefeaturesand their influences on sustainable development. Table 45 shows the main information we obtained from both methods. Table 45: Maindifferencesbetweenthe results obtainedfrom thequantitative andqualitative evaluations of the landscape features for sustainable development. Quantitative evaluation: sustainable Qualitative evaluation: structured interviews development indicators Sustainable • Differences among pilot areas • No differences among pilot areas regional • Do not take into account karst features • Karst features hamper agriculture development • Differences among the three pillars • Karst features can promote tourism of sustainability • Importance of water sources • Detailed economic, social and • Importance of unspoilt nature for tourism environmental data and well-being The karst landscape features mentioned in the interviews were added to the Karst specific indica­tors (see subchapter 4.2) as they obviously represent important aspects for the locals. 4 Discussion and conclusions Bela krajina is characterised by a weak economy, poor demographic structure and well-preserved nature(Table20).ThestudyregionisoneofthemostnaturallypreservedregionsofSloveniaandischar­acterisedbykarstfeatures,predominantlyforestedlandscapeandrichbiodiversity.Theregionhasbeen settledbyvariousethnicgroupsthathavecontributedtoitsethnicandculturaldiversity(Ribeiro2017). According to Plut (1998; 2008), the uneven regional development of Bela krajina is a reflection of the relatively scarce natural resources, karst terrain, remoteness in terms of major roads, underdeveloped infrastructure, belated industrialisation, dispersed settlements and low education levels. The main goal of this study was to identify and analyse the influence of karst landscape features on land use and sustainable development of Bela krajina. In order to draw attention to the combina­tion of social perspectives with natural conditions for an integrative view of the karst landscapes, we used three approaches: 1. state assessment of the karst landscape, 2. analyses of land use dynamics, and 3. quantitative and qualitative analyses of the sustainable development of Bela krajina. With the first approach we measured the degree of disturbance as a result of human impacts on thekarstlandscapeinthreemunicipalities(Crnomelj,MetlikaandSemic).Thiswasdoneusinganenvi­ronmentalindex–the‘KarstDisturbanceIndex’,definedbyvanBeynenandTownsend(2005)andtested in various countries (e.g., Calò and Parise 2006; North 2007). In this study we made minor modifica­tions to the indicators used,according to their relevance to the study region. A novelty of this method is that it allows for the assessment of the karst disturbance, as a result of human activities, of different regionswiththeapplicationofonlyoneindex,whichincludesvariousindicatorsspecifictokarstareas. As the Karst Disturbance Index had not been tested in Slovenia before, comparison of results obtained fromthisindexamongkarstregionsisnotpossible.However,fromreportsonhumanimpactsonkarst landscapes in Slovenia (e.g., Prelovšek and Zupan Hajna 2011) we can say that in comparing Bela kra­jina with the Kras region (Perko 1998), which is also part of the Dinaric Karst, the degree of human disturbance in Bela krajina is lower than in Kras. This does not mean that human disturbance in the study region can be neglected. On the contrary, human disturbance should be used to inform and to raise awareness among locals about the vulnerability of karst landscapes, with implications not just for theenvironmentandhumanhealth,butalsowithimplicationsforthesustainabledevelopmentofBela krajina. The results obtained from this approach, i.e. the low disturbance of the study region, could be an indicator of low industrial development in the region. With the second approach we analysed the spatial processes and patterns across temporal and spa­tialscalestoreveallandscapechangesinBelakrajina. Theanalyseswereundertakenintwocasestudies (Adlešiciand Bojanci)whichwereselectedforanin-depthstudy oflandscapechangesoverthelast200 years based on historical sources (datasets). The choice of these case studies was guided by the distinc­tivepatternsofeacharea’slandscapescontrastingwitheachotherinlanduseandappearance.Thesecase studies show ecologically and historically distinctive cultural landscapes. Although these sites have dif­ferentmanagementregimes,theyarebothaffectedbythedifficultterrain(duetokarstfeatures)andisolation. Thus, in this study we conclude that major land use changes have occurred in Bela krajina during the past 200 years (Figure 51). The total area of fields decreased by 25.9% in Adlešici and 9.0% in Bojanci, whilstthetotalareaofforestsincreasedby32.8%inAdlešiciand56.7%inBojanci. Conversionoffarm­landtoforestreducestheamountof land availableforfood,whichisanimportantaspectregarding the sustainabledevelopmentforBelakrajina.Fromanenvironmentalpointofview,afforestationcanbeseen asapositivelandusechange,howeverinthestudyregionitcontributestothelossoflandscapediversi­ty,lossofbiodiversityandtothelossoftheculturallandscape.Ontheotherside,theproportionofforests inthestudyregionisalreadyhigh anditisnot efficientlyusedfortimber productionand/orwood bio­mass. Inboth case studiesthe proportion of gardensincreased between 1824and2012, which could be anindicatoroftherealignmenttowardshomesteadfoodself-sufficiency. Thiscouldalsomeanthatgar­denshavebeenmappedaccordingtodifferentcriteria(e.g.,accordingtoitssizeoraccordingtoitsproximity tohouses)andthereforethechangesintheproportionofgardensmightbemisleading.Thenaturalcon-ditionsforagriculturewereidentifiedasbeingmorefavourableinBojancithaninAdlešici,howeverland abandonmentinthestudiedperiodwasmorepronounced in Bojanci,suggesting thatthenaturalchar­acteristicsofthekarst landscapeisnotthemajordriver oflandscape changesin thesecasestudies. Withthethirdapproachwecarriedoutquantitative(usingsustainabledevelopmentindicators)and qualitative(usingstructuredinterviews)analysesofthelandscapefeaturesforthesustainabledevelop­mentofBelakrajina.Wemeasuredthelocalsustainabledevelopmentofeachofthethreemunicipalities by comparing them with the average for the study region, along with the Slovenian average. From this quantitativeanalysis,andtakingintoaccountthethreepillarsofsustainabledevelopment,weconcluded thatthemostdevelopedmunicipalityinBelakrajinaisSemic,andtheleastdevelopedisCrnomelj.The main differences between the three municipalities seem to be related totheirstructure. Semic appears tobethemost developed municipality of Bela krajina,as a result of it beinga smallmunicipality,dom­inated by conventional agriculture and geographically close to regional centres. The municipality has a quite important industrial tradition (e.g., Iskra) which was an important driver for its development, and it also economically benefits from wine production. Semic Municipality is also characterised by: dispersed settlements, construction challenges for infrastructure and mobility, low population density and remote villages with few inhabitants. There is also almost non-existent public transport (Adamic et al. 2012). According to the Development Strategy for Semic Municipality, the transport infrastruc­turestilldoesnotmeettheneedsofeconomicdevelopment(Adamicetal.2012).Meanwhile,Crnomelj appearstobetheleastdevelopedmunicipality,asaresultofthelargedistancestoregionalcentres,worse accessibility, it being a larger municipality, major differences within the municipality and low popu­lation density. The results are somewhat surprising as the Crnomelj and Metlika municipalities are considered to be‘centresofinter-municipalimportance’andSemicasa‘centreoflocalimportance’(Naredetal.2017), thereforegreaterdevelopmentwouldbeexpectedfromthesetwomunicipalities.However,itisimpor­tantto note that these results are based on a set of sustainable development indicators which might be insufficient to show the current situation of each municipality. Another important aspect to be noted is that our analysis was compared only within Bela krajina. Comparing Bela krajina to the Slovenian average, we considered the study region to be underde­veloped, especiallyregarding its social and economic aspects. Bela krajina is affected by a negative net migrationbalance.Theout-migrationofyoungergenerationsexacerbatestheruraldemographicstruc­tureoftheregion.Duetomigration,adeficitintheyoungerpopulationarises,whichisdirectlyconnected to the decrease in birth rates in the region. This demographic situation is leading to the stagnation of the population, as well as to the depopulation of the region, and to the aging demographic structure. GenerationalrenewalisthusextremelyimportantinordertopreservethevitalityofBelakrajina.Therefore, the socio-economic structure of the population presents a worrying limiting factor for the sustainable development of Bela krajina. Nevertheless, according to environmental indicators, the study region is placed above the Slovenian average as a result of the high proportion of organically farmed land, the high proportion of forested areas, the high proportion of protected areas and low levels of generated waste. According to the model scenarios attributed to the municipalities, the future of Bela krajina’s land­scape can be illustrated by three possible future scenarios (see subchapter 3.3.1.4): • Scenario 1: The first scenario is based on the interpretation of the current situation of the Crnomelj Municipality and assumes that the current situation will continue in the future, and so Bela kraji­na’s landscapes will become completely overgrown, as a result of the poor demographic structure (depopulation,populationage).Abandonmentofagriculturallandwillcontinueandforestswillexpand, regardless of the potential for agriculture. Even though this scenario could be seen as a nature con­servation scenario, the loss of human intervention will decrease the diversity of the landscape which willresultinthelossofaculturallandscape.AsimilarscenariowaspresentedbyKaligaricandIvajnšic (2014), which predicted the almost complete reforestation of the Kras region by 2100. • Scenario2:ThesecondscenarioisbasedonthesituationoftheMetlikaMunicipalitywhichpredicts moreindustrialfarming.Agriculturalactivitieswillbemoreintensive,anincreaseinagriculturalhold­ings and a decrease in the number of farms will take place in the areas most favourable for agriculture. The productivity per unit areawilltherefore increase. Thistype of farming will be orien­tatedtowardseconomicrationality.Industrywillgrowinspiteofnature;built-upareasandinfrastructure will expand. This will lead to an increase in job opportunities and a decrease in out-migration. This scenario reflects unsustainable development. Price et al. (2015) predicted a comparable scenario for Switzerland, which was named as a ‘high growth, pressure scenario’. This scenario predicted for Switzerlandinvolveseconomicandsocialgrowthwithlowenvironmentalconcerns(Priceetal.2015). • Scenario 3: In the third scenario we assume that agricultural land will be more or less maintained due to financial incentives, especially through the promotion of organic farming. Organic farming will become a more profitable way to farm. The financial incentive system is progressive, meaning that the more farmers contribute to local nature conservation plans, the more subsidies they receive (Tress and Tress 2003). The overgrowing process will stabilise. The number of small enterprises willriseandwiththisthecreationofnewjobopportunities;theenterpriseswillbelocatedinclusters andtherewillbemoreopportunitiesforbusinessesandindustries.Tourismwilldevelop.Population growthwillslightlyincrease. Thisscenario isbased onthe interpretationofthe SemicMunicipality. According to this scenario the region has the ability to retain population, the cultural landscapes willbemaintainedandsustainabledevelopmentisfeasible. Asimilarscenario,namedthe ‘self-suf­ ficiency scenario’, was predicted by Price et al. (2015) for Switzerland. The ‘scenario’ emphasises self-sufficiencyand development at the regionallevel aswellas higherecological awareness(Price et al. 2015). These three scenarios are the result of the quantitative evaluation of the landscape features of the three municipalities and represent their future scenarios, thus they encompass the expectedfutures of the Bela krajina’s landscapes. It is important to note that these scenarios focus on ‘What will happen’ and not on ‘What will happen if…’. Scenario 1 predicts the consequences for the abandoned rural landscape in Crnomelj, scenario 2 is a prediction based on the intensive agriculture landscape that is currently taking place in Metlika, and scenario 3 reflects the valuable natural and cultural landscape of Semic, that is maintained through subsidies. Of these scenarios, the only pathway to the sustainable development of Bela krajina is scenario 3. Even though we would have liked to include the interests of locals in the design of these scenar­ios,analysisofquestionnumber21(seesubchapter3.3.2)revealedsomeoftheinterestsoftherespondents as well as their opinion based on the current state of the landscape. Thus we deduced that the ques­tion was not objective enough and it could not be included in the creation of scenarios. The qualitative analysis of the landscape features for the sustainable development of Bela krajina included 32 interviews with local stakeholders: farmers, resident non-farmers, professionals of nature protection,tourismprofessionalsandrepresentativesoflocalgovernments.Differentperceptionsamong different stakeholders were noted and described in subchapter 3.3.2, however all of them shared sim-ilaropinionsaboutthenaturalnessofBelakrajina’slandscapes.Asaresultofthegreatbiodiversityand landscapediversity,alargeareaofBelakrajina’sterritoryisunderenvironmentalprotection. Tounder­standtheimportanceofprotectedareasforlocalinhabitantsaswellastheircontributionstolocal/regional development, we added two questions related to these protected areas to the interviews. One question regardedtheimpactofprotectedareasontheactivitiesoflocalinhabitants.Theotherquestionregard-ed the impact of protected areas on local development. Among the positive impacts of the protected areas in Bela krajina, the respondents mentioned: the protection of nature, the protection of cultivat­edlandscape(culturallandscape),attractionoftourismanddevelopmentpotential.Similarresultswere obtained in the past (Mrak 2008) through surveys that took place within the territory of the Lahinja LandscapePark.Amongthenegativeimpactsofprotectedareasontheactivitiesoflocals,somerespon-dents mentioned the limitations for agriculture, which was also mentioned by the inhabitants of the Lahinja Landscape Park (Mrak 2008). As mentioned in subchapter 2.1, sustainable development studies usually neglect the natural char­acteristics of the areas being studied. We argue that the characteristics of specific areas, such as karst regions,shouldbeincludedinthemeasurementofdevelopment,inordertoachievesustainabledevel­opment. Thus, at the end of the study we proposed a set of indicators to be taken into consideration in the measurement and monitoring of sustainable development of karst regions, which were named ‘Karst specific indicators’. The majority of the indicators included in the proposed set of indicators are related to natural-geographic aspects of karst landscapes, as it was proved (in the results from inter­views) that karst features negatively influence the farming in the region and positively influence development through the attraction of tourism. To conclude, the region has areas of high value for development that are not very important for conservation (e.g., the TRIS Kanižarica business zone), as well as areas of high conservation value that have low development interest (e.g., karst caves, karst springs). In the study region there are also areas that meet both criteria, i.e. of high conservation value and high development appeal (e.g., the Lahinja and Kolpa Landscape Parks). 4.1 Comments and limitations The application of the approaches used brought both advantages and disadvantages. Wefacedseveralchallengeswhileusingthe‘stabilitymapping’ method(subchapter3.2). Sometra­jectoriesofchangeresultedfromthestabilitymappingshowingthatsomebuilt-upareasappearedand disappeared in adjacent time periods. We are aware that new areas may have been built and old build-ingsmayhavebeendestroyed,howeverintheseexamplesthedynamicsofbuilt-upareasamongdifferent time periods suggest mapping errors, and not the expansion or retreat of this land use type. As can be seen in the graphical results represented in Figures 32 and 33, the built-area areas increased in 1987 and decreased in 2012 in a similar area mapped in the previous century. With these two arguments we prove that built-up areas in the Agrokarta, the map representing the layer for 1987, were imprecisely mapped.Workingwithonlyfourtimeperiods(fourmaplayers)madeitdifficulttocarryouttheinter­pretation of some land use changes. As the overgrown areas were not mapped in 1877 (or simply did not exist), some trajectories of change were considered in our analyses to have ‘No cleartrend’ as they endured two or three land use changes. However, if the areas in 1877 mapped as meadows were actu­ally overgrown areas, these trajectories of change would be considered as cases of natural succession due to land abandonment. As a consequence of this, the aforementioned cases would be defined as ‘Stepped’ or ‘Quasi-stable’ classes of change, and not defined as having ‘No clear trend’.Thus, we con­tend that the stability mapping method used presents a useful approach to analysing land use changes andgivesagoodoverallgraphicalresult,althoughtheresultsshouldbetreatedwithcaution.Assuggested byRibeiro,EllisBurnetandTorkar(2013)thenumberofinputdatasets(timeperiods)canbealimiting factor,andanalysisdonewithlessthan6datasets,asinthecaseofthe presentstudy,hampersthedetec­tion ofallprocesses ofchange. Consequently, the results can besubjectto subjectiveinterpretation. Table 46: Summary of the strengths and weaknesses of the approaches utilised in the study. Approach Karst Disturbance Stability mapping Measurement of sustainable regional development Index Sustainable development Structured indicators interviews Strengths • Straightforward • Useful approach • Gives an overview • Allows for the approach to analyse land of the development examination of • Specific to karst use changes state a respondent’s landscapes • Gives a good • Allows for comparison perceptions of • Allows for com- overall graphical between different areas landscape values, parison among result if the same indicators features and changes different karst are applied landscapes Weaknesses • Data availability • The number of • The majority of • Time-consuming can be a limiting input datasets environmental data and costly factor (time series) is is not available at the • Subject to subjectivity a limiting factor municipal level (from respondents (LAU 2) and interpreters) • Lack of common framework, hampering the comparison among different studies Judgingonlybytheanalysisofsustainabledevelopmentindicators,theSemicMunicipalityappears to be the most developed in Bela krajina. This result is somewhat surprising and it could differ if a dif­ferentsetornumberofindicatorsweretobeused.Forinstance,weperceivedsomedifferencesbetween ourresultsandthe‘MunicipalityDevelopmentCoefficient’(whichusesdifferentindicators,Figure38). This proves that measuring the sustainable development of an area through the application of a set of indicators might be subjective and sometimes misleading. The main benefits and drawbacks of all the approaches used within this research are summarised in Table 46. 4.2 Karst and sustainability Consideringthevulnerabilityofkarstregionstohumanimpacts,theseareasposeanadditionalissue to sustainable development. As claimed by Brinkmann and Garren (2011), karst systems impact the effectiveness of sustainability efforts. In order to measure and monitor the sustainable development of karst regions, we believe that an additionalsetofindicatorsisrequired(togetherwiththepreviouslyappliedsetofsustainabledevelop­mentindicatorsinsubchapter3.3.1),whichemphasisethespecificitiesofkarstareas.Therefore,wepropose a set of indicators to measure and monitor sustainable development in karst regions (Table 47). Table 47: Indicators for measuring and monitoring sustainable development of karst regions (for details see Ribeiro 2017; Ribeiro, Zorn and Carni 2017). Domain Theme Indicator Karst specific indicators Natural features due to karstified terrain Proportion of karstified surface (% of total area) Proportion of stony surface (% of total area) Areas affected by karst floods (% of total area) Areas affected by drought in summer months (% of total area) Density of dolines (number per km2) Microclimate (temperature inversion) Typical livestock in karst areas Number of sheep (number of sheep/ha) Protected areas due to karst features Proportion of Natura 2000 areas due to karst features (% of Natura 2000 areas) Density of valuable natural features of national importance due to surface and subterranean karst phenomena Water availability in karst areas Number of karst sources providing drinking water (number/km2) Density of surface karst waters (km/km2) Agricultural potential Land fragmentation of karst regions Proportion of agricultural land on karst surfaces (%) Proportion of cultural dolines (% cultural dolines per total number of dolines) Proportion of overgrown areas (% of total area) Social and cultural Ethnic structure* background Special cultural features due to karst Number of special landscape features recognised as important cultural heritage Karst disturbance (influence of human activities) Disturbance level of karst areas (assessment resulted from Karst Disturbance Index, subchapter 3.1) *Specific indicators that are important for Bela krajina, but might not be as important or influential in other karst regions. 4.3 Key methodological achievements The main objective of this study was to understand the relationships between landscape features, land use and the sustainable development of a karst region. Thus the research reflects the applicability of different methods for the analysis of the relationship between landscape features, land use and sus­tainable development. The first approach used was the Karst Disturbance Index, which was applied for the first time in Slovenia. In a country with a large surface area of karst terrain, such integrative assessments are nec­essary. During the application of the index we altered some of the indicators that are more important for the particular study region. Whatisalsolackingintheliteratureisacriticalcomparisonbetweendifferentlandscapes;theanaly-sis of the speed of changes in different landscapes; the reasons for these changes, and finally modelling of the landscape development integrating landscape features. Hence, with this study, we also aimed to enhance the understanding of the evolution of Bela krajina’s landscapes and the historical processes thathaveshapedtheregion,inordertoidentifysustainablestrategiesforfuturelandscapemanagement. This was achieved through the analyses of land use dynamics for two case studies presented in sub-chapter 3.2. The study is based upon understanding and measuring sustainable local development (develop­mentofthreemunicipalities),takingintoaccountsocio-geographical,economicandnaturalgeographical particularities. Several studies have been done in the field of landscape research (e.g., Hladnik 2005; PaudelandYuan2012;Swetnam2007),andregionaldevelopment(e.g.,Cerne2003;Ravbar2009),how­ever, there is still a lack of interdisciplinary and integrated studies. Studies on regional development usually do not include landscape related variables (Dissart 2007). Thereby a common practice within literature dealing with this topic is to confine amenities to a single dimensional variable (Deller et al. 2001).Therefore,wemadeeffortstomeasurethesustainabledevelopmentofthestudyregionthrough abalance(somewhatlimitedbydataavailability)ofsocial,economic,andenvironmentalaspects.Thus, we attempted to measure sustainable development with multi-dimensional variables in this study. With everything considered, we wanted tobring forth new information and understanding in the fields of landscape research and sustainable development, and to justify the importance of landscape features at municipality/regional scales. Thus, and following the ideas of Bloemers et al. (2010), from a scientific point of view the main challenges were to integrate natural geographical, socio-geograph-ical,andeconomicparticularitiestogethertocarryoutin-depthinterdisciplinaryresearch.Wedidthis to inform current situations through long-term historical research, including a social perspective on thecurrentenvironmentaldemands;toproposenewlinksbetweenresearch,policyandpracticethrough the concept of landscape as a cultural construction; and, to understand personal and collective prac­tices of local identity using the landscape. Studies on sustainable development of karst regions, including the development potential of these areasandtheirenvironmentaldegradation,arescarce.Themeasurementandmonitoringofthedevel­opment potential and management of karst areas is of great importance in Slovenia. Therefore, we proposedasetofsustainabledevelopmentindicators(subchapter4.2),tomeasureandmonitorthesus­tainable development of karst regions, taking into account their specificities and vulnerability. Until now, a set of such indicators has not been proposed. Itishopedthatthisworkcanfunctionasamodelandstimulusforfurthereffortstowardssustainable development research of karst regions. 4.4 Recommendations Theresultsofourstudyshowthatkarstlandscapefeaturesinfluenceboththelanduseandthesus­tainable development of Bela krajina. Agriculture in Bela krajina faces challenges. It is not competitive due to the soil and relief condi­tions, the poor economic and financial power of farms, as well as the unfavourable age and education structure of the local population. As a result, abandonment of farming and reduction of farms is tak­ingplace.Eventhoughtheeconomicsignificanceoffarmingislowandhasdecreasedinthelastdecades in favour of other activities, it is of vital importance for landscape stability and the sustainable devel­opmentofBelakrajina.Thepreservationofextensiveagriculture(traditionalpractices)shouldbestimulated inordertofightagainsttheovergrowthofagriculturalland.Simultaneously,thepreservationofexten­sive agriculture is very important in order to preserve biodiversity, landscape diversity and culturallandscapes which are crucial to provide ecosystem services (Ribeiro and Šmid Hribar 2019). Another challenge that agriculture in the study region faces is to produce enough food at competitive prices, and to feed the local population with a smaller rural labour force. Nevertheless, agricultural growth, and adopting efficient and sustainable techniques adapted to karst characteristics, is key for the sus­tainable development of Bela krajina. Due to the karst landscape features in the study region, organic farming is potentially appealing for the region, where land plots are small and conventional agricul­tural production is very limited. Incentive-based policies to influence land use decisions adapted to karst characteristics should be prepared. In vulnerable areas such as karst landscapes, farmers should be encouraged to use appropriate methods of farming (e.g., organic farming). The expansion of the proportion of organic products and the increase in the demand for local products is emerging as an answer to improve the economic situations of local farmers and thus contribute to local development. Thepromotionoflocalmarketswithlocallyproducedandenvironmentallyfriendlyproductsalsocon­tributestothelocaleconomy(e.g.,creationofsmallenterprises),thehealthcareofthelocalpopulation (promotionofhealthylocalfoodinschools,kindergartens,nursinghomesandcanteensofotherinsti-tutions),andtheenvironmentalconditionsofthekarstlandscapesofBelakrajina.Therefore,wesuggest thepromotionofregionalfoodself-sufficiencyasacontributortosustainabledevelopment,whichwould also contribute to the maintenance of landscape diversity and traditions, and to employment in rural areasofBelakrajina.Thiswouldinvolvethecreationofagro-foodchainsthatareabsentfromtheregion at the moment. The efficiency of this strategy has been discussed by several studies (e.g., Bah 2013; Noromiarilanto et al. 2016). This strategy would provide reasons for people to stay in the region and reduce out-migration. However, this is only possible with the participation of locals, where local peo­ple are encouraged to think about their future and exploit their ideas to stay in the region. Thesamecanbeappliedtotheinvolvementoflocalinhabitantsintheprotectionandmanagement of protected areas, which constitute 46% of Bela krajina’s territory. As key stakeholders, local inhabi­tants have to be educated and involved in the management processes, and must support them, otherwisetheprotectedareaswillnotbenefitthelocals.Localinhabitantswouldthusembracethepro­tected areas as their own, and protected areas could act as promotion for local development. Previous studies have confirmed this approach (e.g., Lampic and Mrak 2008; Lampic, Mrak and Plut 2011). We contend that the protected areas in Bela krajina should be promoted as specific development areas, as suggestedbyPlutandBreckoGrubar(2008).AccordingtoLampic,MrakandPlut(2011),theprotection and development of areas rated as category V in the IUCN, such as the Lahinja and Kolpa Landscape Parks, is equally important. Thus the study region possesses good development potential based on the existing protected areas. The Kolpa River is currently the core of local tourism. Since tourism in Bela krajina is linked to the natural and cultural amenities of the region,thewell­preservednaturalandculturalheritagehasthepotentialtopromotethedevelopmentoftourism.Many traditionaleventsstilltakeplace:Jurjevanje,VinskavigredandSemiškaohcet.Thisshowspotentialdevel­opment based on endogenous resources, emphasising the resources present in the region. Therefore, the promotion of unique features of the landscape (e.g., strong ethnic and cultural identity, consider-ableareasunderprotection,theendemicblackolm)astouristattractions,aspromotersofdevelopment, and the conservation of the traditional landscape and traditions (e.g., Uskok traditions), is relevant for the study region. We encourage the promotion of the black olm as a unique karst symbol of Bela kra­jina,beingadistinctivesymboltopromotesustainabletourismintheregion.Theattractionofthenatural environment and tourism can be a significant part of Bela krajina’s economy. Companies built around theutilisationoftheregion’samenities(e.g.,touristoffersinvolvinglocalagriculturalproductsandaccom­modation) can lead to development of the region and provide new jobs. However additional infrastructure is still necessary, such as different kinds of accommodation, trails and roads, as well as transportation and other facilities. In spite of this, and even though many of the respondents stated that the region has a high tourism potential, sustainable development of the region cannot be based only built around tourism or natural amenities, as most tourism is seasonal and factors such as poor seasonal weather can have an impact on the local economy. Tourism development should be of high qualityandvariety,showingthedistinctivecharacteristicsofBelakrajina’slandscape.Itisthereforenec­essarytodevelopastrategictourismplanthatinvolvesthethreemunicipalities,basedonproductsresulting from their rich cultural and natural heritage, and the many opportunities for active recreation. Thecreationanddevelopmentofsmallenterprisesisthusofextremeimportanceforthedevelopment of the study region, which according to its vulnerability (e.g., ecological vulnerability of water sources can be considered as a limiting factor for the development of industry) does not allow for the devel­opment of industry at a larger scale. Even though one aspect that influences the regional development of Bela krajina is its poor acces­sibility and limited connections to larger urban centres and neighbouring regions (e.g., Novo mesto), some local stakeholders stated that the remoteness of Bela krajina contributes to the preservation of the unspoiled nature of the study region. This weak connection to larger urban centres also affects the socio-economic structure of the region (hindering service delivery, communications and job oppor­tunities).Thusthedevelopmentoftransportinfrastructure,suchastheproposedcorridorofthe‘Third DevelopmentAxis’,connectingBelakrajinawithotherSloveneregionsandtheCroatianhighway,would increasetheaccessibilitytotheregionandstrengthentheregionaleconomy.However,thestrategicloca­tionofthestudyregion,alongtheCroatianborder,couldbeusedtopromotetrans-boundarycooperation with the neighbouring Croatian municipalities, taking advantage of easier trade with the neighbouring country.Itisrelevanttomentiontheimportanceofdevelopmentprojects,suchasthePokolpjeBusiness Opportunity (Pokolpje poslovna priložnost 2017), to promote business opportunities and benefits for investment and employment in the study region. Thus the development of Bela krajina must be based on strengthening the multifunctional role of the landscape, based on the principles of sustainable development and management of renewable nat­ural resources, preservation of the cultural landscape, protecting the environment, and biodiversity. It has also been shown that afforestation is taking place in the study region, and that the region is char-acterisedbytheseextensiveforestedlandscapes(seesubchapter3.2).Thuswesuggestthattheseforested landscapes,andtheassociatedrichnessofbiomass,shouldbepromotedasfactorswithgreateconomic potential. The various renewable energy sources present in the study region also offer potential devel­opment, particularly wood biomass, solar energy, hydropower and geothermal energy, that are currently not being sufficiently exploited. Measures to address the economic and social enhancement of the study region must be taken to establish new ways to increase employment; otherwise the region willcontinuetosufferfromout-migrationandpopulationdecline.Inaddition,consideringthevulnerability ofkarstregionstohumanimpacts,theseareasposeafurtherproblemtosustainabledevelopment.Taking into account the fact that almost half of Slovenia is covered by karst, the proposed set of ‘Karst specif­ic indicators’ has the potential to bring a more integrative assessment of the sustainable development of karst regions. When considering all the aforementioned recommendations, karst landscape features should not only be seen as limiting factors, but also for their own development potential. 4.5 Suggested areas for future study It is hoped that this study can provide planners with elements to sustainably manage the landscape andpromotesustainabledevelopmentinBelakrajinaandotherkarstareas.However,weareawarethat a lot more could be done, and thus in the following paragraphs we have proposed some suggestions for areas of further study. We hope that these open questions can open paths to new research. TheapplicationoftheKarstDisturbanceIndex(subchapter3.1)tootherSloveniankarstregionswould be necessary to make an overall assessment of thedisturbance degree of karst areas in the country. The inclusion of additional datasets, especially those dating between 1877 and 1987, to the analy­ses of land use changes would improve understanding of the landscape changes in the study region, as well as provide better interpretation of the trajectories of change acquired from the stability mapping approach (subchapter 3.2). In addition to the interviews presented in subchapter 3.3.2, supplementary interviews should be done with former residents of Bela krajina who no longer live in the region, in order to understand theirreasonsforleavingtheregion.Supplementaryinterviewsshouldalsobedonewithtouriststounder­stand the reasons that make the region attractive to them. Sincetheproposedscenariosdidnotfollowwidelyappliedscenariotechniques(e.g.,TressandTress 2003; Gantar and Golobic 2015), we propose a participatory scenario for further studies that would address the question of how different demands on Bela krajina’s landscapes can be identified by dif­ferent stakeholders. This could enhance the role of stakeholders in planning future landscapes. Althoughweanalysedtheinfluenceoflandscapefeaturesonlanduseandsustainabledevelopment in this study, it would be interesting to study the opposite relationship, i.e. how land use and sustain­able development influence the landscape features. And furthermore, what are the impacts of land use changes on the economy, population and environment? Theresultsofthepresentstudyhavesomeimplicationsforthefuturemonitoringandmanagement of karst landscapes. We believe that the information obtained may be useful to several stakeholders. The results of this study can be relevant at a national level, but they are particularly useful for the sus­tainable development of karst regions. 5 References and Sources 5.1 References Aarhus Convention: An Implementation Guide. 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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-013-9894-9 Wu,J.,Wu,T.2012:Sustainabilityindicatorsandindices.HandbookofSustainableManagement.London. Zakonogozdovih[TheForestAct]1993.UradnilistRepublikeSlovenije30/1993,56/1999,67/2002,110/2002, 115/2006,110/2007,106/2010,63/2013,101/2013,17/2014,24/2015,9/2016and77/2016. Ljubljana. Zakonovarstvupodzemnihjam[UndergroundCaveProtectionAct]2004.UradnilistRepublikeSlovenije 2/2004, 61/2006 and 46/2014. Ljubljana. Zorn, M., Kumer, P., Ferk, M. 2015: Od gozda do gozda ali kje je goli, kamniti Kras? [From Forest to Forest or Where is the Bare Rocky Karst?]. Kronika 63-3. Zuleeg, F. 2010: European Economic Sustainability Index. Brussels. Zumaglini, M. 2008: Population. Mapping the Alps, Society, Economy, Environment. Heidelberg. 5.2 Sources of qualitative data (interviews) AK, tourism professional, personal communication, 28 of June 2016. Dragatuš, Crnomelj. AK, resident, personal communication, 4 of July 2016. Semic. AP, resident, personal communication, 18 of July 2016. Semic. BG, professional of nature protection, personal communication, 27 of June 2016. Adlešici, Crnomelj. BJ, representative of local government, personal communication, 4 of July 2016. Semic. BP, farmer, personal communication, 4 of July 2016. Sela, Semic. BR, tourism professional, personal communication, 1 of July 2016. Adlešici, Crnomelj. DM, resident, personal communication, 18 of July 2016. Semic. GA, representative of local government, personal communication, 14 of July 2016. Crnomelj.IŠ, representative of local government, personal communication, 21 of July 2016. Metlika. JG, resident, personal communication, 16 of July 2016. Adlešici, Crnomelj. JJ, resident, personal communication, 13 of July 2016. Crnomelj. JK, farmer, personal communication, 21 of July 2016. Griblje, Crnomelj. JN, representative of local government, personal communication, 21 of July 2016. Metlika. JV, farmer, personal communication, 5 of July 2016. Curile, Metlika. LB, tourism professional, personal communication, 27 of June 2016. Crnomelj. MaP, tourism professional, personal communication, 15 of July 2016. Gradac, Metlika. MB, resident, personal communication, 1 of July 2016. Hrast pri Jugorje, Metlika. MI, professional of nature protection, personal communication, 24 of June 2016. Sela, Semic. MiP, tourism professional, personal communication, 13 of July 2016. Gradac, Metlika. MK, tourism professional, personal communication, 18 of July 2016. Rosalnice, Metlika. MK, representative of local government, personal communication, 18 of July 2016. Semic. MM, resident, personal communication, 21 of July 2016. Metlika. MP, farmer, personal communication, 5 of July 2016. Curile, Metlika.NŠ, professional of nature protection, personal communication, 24 of June 2016. Crnomelj.PM, farmer, personal communication, 1 of July 2016. Maline pri Štrekljevcu, Semic. SM, farmer, personal communication, 28 of June 2016. Vavpca Vas, Semic.SŽ, professional of nature protection, personal communication, 18 of July 2016. Krupa, Semic. TJ, tourism professional, personal communication, 27 of June 2016. Adlešici, Crnomelj. VK, representative of local government, personal communication, 14 of July 2016. Crnomelj.VŠ, farmer, personal communication, 1 of July 2016. Stari Trg ob Kolpi, Crnomelj. VV, tourism professional, personal communication, 4 of July 2016. Veliki Nerajec, Crnomelj. 6 List of figures Figure 1: Nested sustainability model (adapted from Giddings, Hopwood and O’Brien 2002). Figure 2: PSR indicator framework (adapted from OECD core set…1993). Figure 3: The DPSIR assessment framework (adapted from Environmental indicators…1999). Figure 4: Geographical location of the study region (Bela krajina), municipalities (Crnomelj, Metlika and Semic) and case studies (settlements of Adlešici in Bojanci). Figure 5: Franziscean Land Cadastral maps georeferenced for the settlement of Adlešici (the red line represents the territorial border of the settlement). Figure 6: Table of the layers from the operation ‘Intersect’. Figure 7: Disused quarry located in the Veliki Nerajec settlement. On the left the identification on the topographic map from 1996, in the centre its visualisation from Lidar data from 2014 and on the right how the abandoned location looks on DOF from 2014/2015 (Atlas okolja 2016). Figure 8: Disused quarry located in the Mali Nerajec settlement. On the left the identification on the topographic map from 1971, in the centre its visualisation from Lidar data from 2014 and on the right how the abandoned location looks on DOF from 2014/2015 (Atlas okolja 2016). Figure 9: Disused quarry located in the Staritrg settlement. On the left the identification on the topo­graphic map from 1996, in the centre its visualisation from Lidar data from 2014 and on the right how the abandoned location looks on DOF from 2014/2015 (Atlas okolja 2016). Figure 10: External view of the disused quarry; on the ground it can be seen how this abandoned loca­tion has been used as a construction and demolition waste disposal site (photo: Jure Ticar). Figure 11: Disused quarry located in the Golek settlement. On the left the identification on the topo­graphic map from 1976, in the centre its visualisation from Lidar data from 2014 and on the right how the abandoned location looks on DOF from 2014/2015 (Atlas okolja 2016). Figure 12: Disused quarry located in the town of Crnomelj. On the left the identification on the topo­graphic map from 1996, in the centre its visualisation from Lidar data from 2014 and on the right how the abandoned location looks on DOF from 2014/2015 (Atlas okolja 2016). Figure 13: Disused quarry located in the Dragovanja vas settlement. On the left the identification on the topographic map from 1976, in the centre its visualisation from Lidar data from 2014 and on the right how the abandoned location looks on DOF from 2014/2015 (Atlas okolja 2016). Figure 14: Disused quarry located in the Kucar settlement. On the left the identification on the topo­graphic map from 1971, in the centre its visualisation from Lidar data from 2014 and on the right how the abandoned location looks on DOF from 2014/2015 (Atlas okolja 2016). Figure 15: Disused quarry located in the Gornja Lokvica settlement. On the left the identification on the topographic map from 1976, in the centre its visualisation from Lidar data from 2014 and on the right how the abandoned location looks on DOF from 2014/2015 (Atlas okolja 2016). Figure16:DisusedquarrylocatedintheGradniksettlement.Onthelefttheidentificationonthetopo-graphic map from 1976, in the centre its visualisation from Lidar data from 2014 and on the right how the abandoned location looks on DOF from 2014/2015 (Atlas okolja 2016). Figure 17: Disused quarry located in the Ribnik settlement. On the left the identification on the topo­graphic map from 1998, in the centre its visualisation from Lidar data from 2014 and on the right how the abandoned location looks on DOF from 2014/2015 (Atlas okolja 2016). Figure 18: Disused quarry located in the Srednja Gora settlement. On the left the identification on the topographic map from 1996, in the centre its visualisation from Lidar data from 2014 and on the right how the abandoned location looks on DOF from 2014/2015 (Atlas okolja 2016). Figure 19: Disused quarry located in the Srednja vas settlement. On the left the identification on the topographic map from 1998, in the centre its visualisation from Lidar data from 2014 and on the right how the abandoned location looks on DOF from 2014/2015 (Atlas okolja 2016). Figure 20: Flood hazard maps for rare floods. Figure 21: The permanent ponor Mlinška jama (photo: Daniela Ribeiro). Figure 22: Polluted cave Kipina jama (cadastral number 853), located in Metlika Municipality (photo: Jure Ticar). Figure23:IllegalwastedisposalclosetoMalikoveccaveintheSemicMunicipality(photo:DanielaRibeiro). Figure 24: Erosion risk according to slope in cultivated areas of the Crnomelj Municipality. Figure 25: Erosion risk according to slope in cultivated areas of the Metlika Municipality. Figure 26: Erosion risk according to slope in cultivated areas of the Semic Municipality. Figure27:Floorsedimentcompaction-destructionintheMalikoveccave,locatedintheSemicMunicipality (photo: Daniela Ribeiro). Figure28:PresentationbytheBrežiceCavingClubatanopendayatOŠSavaKladnikaSevnicaprimary school,wherecaveexplorerstalkedaboutkarstandkarstphenomenaanditsimportancefornature protection. The presentation did not take place in the study region, but the photograph is repre­sentative of such activities (photo: Jure Ticar). Figure 29: Changes in land use categories over time for the Adlešici case study. Figure 30: Changes in land use categories over time for the Bojanci case study. Figure 31: Changes in land use categories proportions over time for Adlešici. Figure 32: Changes in land use categories proportions over time for Bojanci. Figure33:Changesintheareasofcultivatedfieldsanddemographicfluctuationbetween1824and2012 for both case studies. Figure 34: Stability map showing the trajectories of change for the Adlešici case study. Figure 35: Stability map showing the trajectories of change for the Bojanci case study. Figure 36: Transitions of land use categories (ha) over time for the Adlešici case study. Figure 37: Transitions of land use categories (ha) over time for the Bojanci case study. Figure 38: The development of the three municipalities of Bela krajina according to the ‘Municipality Development Coefficient’ (Koeficient razvitosti obcin 2016). Figure 39: Prominence of words that were most frequently mentioned regarding benefits provided by the landscape. Figure 40: Prominence of words that were most frequently mentioned regarding aspects of landscape attractiveness. Figure41:Prominenceofwordsthatweremostfrequentlymentionedregardingthewaylandscapecon­tributes to human well-being. Figure 42: Prominence of words that were most frequently mentioned regarding characteristics of the landscape that makes it distinct from other landscapes. Figure 43: Graphical representation of the answers regarding landscape changes. Figure44:Prominenceofwordsthatweremostfrequentlymentionedregardingthefactorsthatinfluence landscape change. Figure 45: Prominence of words that were most frequently mentioned regarding factors that influence landscape change, grouped according to similar meanings. Figure46:Prominenceofwordsthatweremostfrequentlymentionedregardingvaluesofthelandscape. Figure47:Graphicalrepresentationoftheanswersregardingtheinfluenceoflandscapefeaturesonlocal activities. Figure48:Graphical representationofanswers regardingtheinfluenceofkarstfeatures onlocal devel­opment. Figure 49: Graphical representation of the answers regarding landscape development. Figure 50: Graphical representation of the answers regarding the increase in self-sufficiency in food as an employment opportunity for rural development. Figure 51: Schematic representation of the major land use changes occurring in Bela krajina during the past 200 years. Figure 52: Factors which influence the sustainable development of karst areas. 7 List of tables Table 1: Overview of the thematic development indicators used in Slovenian studies. Table 2: Indicators of Karst Disturbance Index applied in Bela krajina (adapted from van Beynen and Townsend 2005). Table 3: Classification of the degree of human disturbance on karst environments (van Beynen and Townsend 2005). Table 4: Legend keys of the data sources used. Table 5: Coded land use categories. Table6:Combinationofthethreespatialindicesusedinordertoderivetheclassoftrajectoryofchange for the four time periods. Table 7: Respondents’ profile and their residence location in the municipalities. Table8:Listofallthequestionsfromtheinterviewsandtargetstakeholdertowhomthequestionswere addressed. Table 9: The location of wastewater treatment plants in the municipalities. Table 10: Industries existent in the municipalities. Table 11: Karst Disturbance Index ranking of individual indicators for the three municipalities. Table 12: Classification of karst disturbance for the three municipalities. Table 13: Coverage of land use categories (ha) in the Adlešici case study. Table 14: Coverage of land use categories (ha) in Bojanci case study. Table 15: The set of sustainable development indicators used to measure the sustainable development ofthemunicipalities,presentedbythemesandrespectivedomainsofsustainabledevelopment.The column ‘source’ gives information about similar studies which have used the same or comparable indicators. Table 16: Values attributed to the economic indicators for the three municipalities, as well as averages for the study region and Slovenia. Table17:Valuesattributedtotheenvironmentalindicatorsforthethreemunicipalities,aswellasaver-ages for the study region and Slovenia. Table 18: Values attributed to the social indicators for the three municipalities, as well as averages for the study region and Slovenia. Table 19: Sustainable development in the three municipalities. Table 20: Comparison of the sustainable development in the study region with the national level. Table 21: Model matrix of landscape types reflecting their population retention capacity. Table 22: Placing the three municipalities in the model scenarios. Table 23: Items mentioned by the respondents regarding what the landscape provides them with. Table 24: Items mentioned by the respondents while talking about aspects that make the landscapes of Bela krajina attractive. Table 25: How the landscape contributes to human well-being. Table 26: Characteristics of the landscape that distinguish it from other places. Table 27: Characteristics of the landscape mentioned by nature protection stakeholders and tourism stakeholders and the relative percentage difference between both groups of stakeholders. Table 28: Percentage of respondents who mentioned the occurrence of landscape changes. Table 29: Directions of landscape change according to respondents, grouped by subject matter. Table 30: Landscape changes according to stakeholder group, regarding type of change. Table 31: Factors that influence landscape change. Table 32: Factors that influence landscape change grouped according to similar meanings. Table33:Factorsthatinfluencelandscapechangeaccordingtothegroupofstakeholdersthatmentioned them. Table 34: Roles of local stakeholders in landscape management. Table 35: Values of the landscape as seen by local stakeholders. Table 36: The most frequently mentioned items regarding the value of the landscape and the relative importance of each to the different groups of stakeholders. Table 37: Differences in responses from the three participant groups of stakeholders: farmers, resident non-farmers and local governments representatives. Table 38: How karst features of the landscape influence respondents’ activities. Table 39: Benefits and drawbacks of karst features of the landscape that influence people’s activities. Table 40: Differences in responses from the four participant groups of stakeholders, regarding the influence of karst features on local development. Table 41: Differences in responses from the two respondent groups of stakeholders, regarding the influence of nature protection on their activities. Table 42: Differences in responses from the two respondent groups of stakeholders, regarding the influence of nature protection on local development. Table 43: Level of development of the landscape according to local stakeholders. Table 44: Differences in responses from the three respondent groups of stakeholders regarding food self-sufficiency. Table 45: Main differences between the results obtained from the quantitative and qualitative evalua­tions of the landscape features for sustainable development. Table 46: Summary of the strengths and weaknesses of the approaches utilised in the study. Table47:Indicatorsformeasuringandmonitoringsustainabledevelopmentofkarstregions(fordetails see Ribeiro 2017; Ribeiro, Zorn and Carni 2017). Daniela Ribeiro daniela.ribeiro@zrc-sazu.si http://giam.zrc-sazu.si/ribeiro Daniela Ribeiro was born on 10th December, 1983 in Vila Real, Portugal. After graduating from high school, she enrolled at the University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro in Vila Real, Portugal, where she graduated in 2007 with a Degree in Environmental and Natural Resources Engineering. ShecontinuedherpostgraduatestudiesattheGraduateSchooloftheUniversity of Nova Gorica, Slovenia, where she completed her Master's Degree in EnvironmentalSciencesin2011.InthesameyearsheenrolledintheInter-disciplinary Doctoral Programme in Environmental Protection at the UniversityofLjubljanaandwasemployedasanEarlyCareerResearcherattheAntonMelikGeographical InstituteoftheResearch CentreoftheSlovenianAcademy of Sciences andArts (ZRCSAZU).In2017, she obtained her doctoral degree. She is the author and co-author of several scientific and professional articles on the topics of invasive plant species distribution, landscape changes and environmental protection. She is a member of the Order of Engineers (a regulatory and licensing body for the Engineering profession in Portugal), the Eastern Alpine and Dinaric Society for Vegetation Ecology – EADSVE, the Interdisciplinary group on Ecosystem Services at ZRC SAZU – INTERECOS, and of the International Association for Landscape Ecology – IALE-Europe.