This paper aims to highlight the problems and possibilities for improving the nature protection zoning of protected areas (PA) in spatial planning. It analyses and compares the systems of spatial planning and the legal basis for protecting nature in PAs in selected EU countries and Serbia. It investigates and compares the role of nature protection zoning and the practice of spatial planning for selected European countries. The case study of a national park in each of the selected countries is used to analyse the nature protection zoning and its role in the coordination of spatial planning for PAs and their surroundings. The initial hypothesis is tested and confirmed that, regardless of differences in the planning systems of the selected European countries, the models of nature protection zoning established for PAs are defining for the coordination of planning instruments in achieving the protection and sustainable development of PAs. The lessons learnt concern the identification of similarities and differences in approaches to nature protection zoning, and their relationship with the spatial planning for PAs in six European countries. Based on these lessons and existing research, recommendations are given for improving the legal basis for the nature protection zoning and spatial planning of PAs in Serbia.

Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) for waste management planning (WMP) has been applied around the world for fifteen years now. In addition to identifying potential trends in space and the environment by means of WMP, the SEA process contributes to involving the general public in issues relevant to the environment. In turn, the endpoint of the SEA process is a set of results that enable appropriate decisions to be made related to WMP. Bearing this in mind, it is necessary for all the segments of the SEA process to be supported by specific spatial analyses and presentations enabling visual monitoring of the results. In this context, an important role is played by GIS tools, since they offer support to the SEA process and give it a new quality, which, in addition to visualizing the results, also increases objectivity in the evaluation of the planned solutions. This paper presents the deployment of GIS tools in spatial analysis and the support they provide for the SEA process during the development of the Agro-Waste Management Plan for Oplenac Vineyard in Serbia (AWMP). The results indicate the possibility of applying GIS tools to increase objectivity in the Multi-Criteria Evaluation (MCE) of the planned solutions in the SEA process.

The paper analyses the planning framework for sustainable territorial and regional development. The spatial and environmental planning should play the key role in coordination and integration of different planning grounds in achieving the sustainable regional development. The paper discusses the spatial planning capacity to offer the integral view of the sustainable territorial development. The brief review of tendencies in new spatial planning and regional policy has been given. The focus is on the concept of balanced polycentric development of European Union. The guiding principles of spatial planning in regard of planning system reform in European countries have been pointed out. The changes in paradigm of regional policy, and the tasks of European regional spatial planning have been discussed. In Serbia problems occur in regard with the lack of coordinating sectoral planning with spatial and environmental planning. Partly the problem lies in the legal grounds, namely in non codification of laws and unregulated horizontal and vertical coordination at all levels of governance. The possibilities for the implementation of spatial planning principles and concepts of European Union sustainable territorial and regional development have been analyzed on the case of three regional spatial plans of eastern and southeastern regions in Serbia. The disadvantages in implementing the strategic environmental impact assessment as an instrument for coordination and integration of sectorial planning with spatial and environmental planning have been analyzed. The strategic environmental impact assessment has been implemented only in the spatial planning process. Through spatial planning process its feedback effect on sectorial planning has been indirectly achieved. The priority actions in Serbia for achieving the spatial and environmental planning role in coordination and integration of different planning grounds in sustainable regional development have been given.

The Danube River is both the international waterway E-80 and the Rhine-Danube Core Network Corridor of nine European corridors in the trans-European transport network, and it is the core area of the most significant Danubian development axis in the Republic of Serbia. The present research focus of this paper is the integrated impact of spatial planning on achieving the sustainable territorial development of the Rhine-Danube Corridor through Serbia and its potential transboundary impact. Integrated assessment (environmental and social), based on the combined application of the standard strategic environmental assessment (SEA) method and the newly presented adapted strategic environmental assessment (ASEA) method, has made it possible to predict the effects of future activities on the sustainable territorial development of the waterway corridor, not only in Serbia, but also in other Danubian countries. The applied combination of the SEA and ASEA methods is presented in the form of key planning solutions in three selected sectors: international inland waterway, water management infrastructure and tourism. The results indicate that the negative impacts of potential conflicts between the planning solutions are far greater than the negative impacts of individual planning solutions, and that it is more difficult to control and mitigate or neutralize them.

Given that mankind has occasionally been exposed to the devastation of catastrophic proportions throughout its history (extreme weather events, natural dis-asters, bioterrorism, and pandemics are having an increased global impact), which are increasing in the 20th century due to climate change, the risk reduction measures are being taken at the global level to reduce the severity of the consequences. Natural and technological disasters in the European countries have caused significant loss of life and damage to structures and infrastructure, which has led to the ratification of conventions at the world level in the field of disaster preparedness (Hyogo Framework for Action and Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Management). Hospitals and other healthcare facilities are amongst those most jeopardized. The paper gives an overview of the methodology in the field of defining the resilience of healthcare facilities through determining the hospital safety index. Through the application of this and other methodologies in a case study conducted in Serbia, the paper examines the direct correlations between hospital safety index and climate change. Paper gives the results of hospital safety index calculation considering modules 2-4 and possibilities for the potential use of the module 1 (research on hazards) in separate evaluation.