Natural and societal driving forces of extensification of European and Czech landscape after 1990

This master thesis focuses on extensification of agricultural production and land use, and on driving forces and factors that influence this process. The research concentrates on land-use changes resulting from the extensification of agriculture (especially grassing-over and abandonment of agricultural land) in last twenty years. Emphasis is put on an analysis of driving forces of extensification processes that have an influence on land-use change. Factors with an impact on extensification are divided into natural and socio-economic ones. Natural factors are represented for example by air temperature, precipitation, altitude, slope, or soil productivity. As socio-economic ones we consider for instance the Common Agricultural Policy of the European Union, Gross Domestic Product, population density, spatial exposedness, or patterns of use and ownership of agricultural land. These factors are studied on European, Czech and local scales. Data for this research were collected from international and Czech databases; on the local level there was performed the author's own field research. Results of this thesis are obtained by quantitative research that demonstrate the main influence of natural driving forces on the process of extensification in Europe. Land-use changes related with extensification of agriculture..