Changes in the cultural landscape provide essential evidence about the manner and intensity of the interactions between humans and nature. Czechia has a specific location in Central Europe. It is positioned at the crossroads of European landscape changes. These changes can be documented based on a unique database that shows the development of land use since the middle of the 19th century. In this study, we aimed to address the major processes of landscape change that occurred during four periods over the past 165 years, at the cadastral level on the territory of present-day Czechia. Further we identify and discuss proximate and underlying driving forces of the landscape changes. We used land use data from the year 1845, 1896, 1948, 1990, and 2010 that correspond to key events in Czech history. The major processes and intensity of landscape change were evaluated based on calculations of increases and decreases in land use classes between the first and last year of each examined period. The period 1845–1896 was the only period in which arable land increased, and the most recent period, 1990–2010, was the only period during which a grassing over process was recorded. Afforestation was recorded in all periods. The communist period was characterized by unified changes—urbanization, afforestation, arable land decrease, and landscape devastation. The post-communist period was, in some respects, beneficial to the landscape (e.g., grassing over and afforestation, particularly in mountain areas), but it also led to negative processes, such as strong urbanization and land abandonment. Such changes lead to landscape polarization. The landscape changes in Czechia during the period 1845–2010 reflect many important historical events in Europe. In our analysis, we demonstrate the essential impact of underlying drivers and also identify driving forces specific to the development of the Czech territory.

The paper deals with mapping of landscape transition after the collapse of Communism in Czechia on national and local levels. Three maps demonstrate the main trends of landscape transition on the national level (by cadastral units) in the period 1990–2010. The Main Map shows the four most important Processes of landscape change (afforestation, grassing over, intensification, and urbanization). The second map demonstrates the proportion of area where any kind of land use change occurred (Index of change) and the third map (Extensification) indicates the shift to less intensive use of land (increase of forests and grasslands). Two main processes were mapped on the local level, that is, by parcels. The case of Jirny showed strong sububanization: fertile agricultural land has been turned into residential and commercial areas, roads; soil sealing was taking place. On the contrary, grassing over and afforestation was detected in Hošťka where arable land almost disappeared – it was either abandoned or replaced mainly by pastures between 1990 and 2010.

Laboratory spectroscopy in visible and infrared regions is an important tool for studies dealing with plant ecophysiology and early recognition of plant stress due to changing environmental conditions. Leaf optical properties are typically acquired with a spectroradiometer coupled with an integration sphere (IS) in a laboratory or with a contact probe (CP), which has the advantage of operating flexibility and the provision of repetitive in-situ reflectance measurements. Experiments comparing reflectance spectra measured with different devices and device settings are rarely reported in literature. Thus, in our study we focused on a comparison of spectra collected with two ISs on identical samples ranging from a Spectralon and coloured papers as reference standards to vegetation samples with broadleaved (Nicotiana Rustica L.) and coniferous (Picea abies L. Karst.) leaf types. First, statistical measures such as mean absolute difference, median of differences, standard deviation and paired-sample t-test were applied in order to evaluate differences between collected reflectance values. The possibility of linear transformation between spectra was also tested. Moreover, correlation between normalised differential indexes (NDI) derived for each device and all combinations of wavelengths between 450 nm and 1800 nm were assessed. Finally, relationships between laboratory measured leaf compounds (total chlorophyll, carotenoids and water content), NDI and selected spectral indices often used in remote sensing were studied. The results showed differences between spectra acquired with different devices. While differences were negligible in the case of the Spectralon and they were possible to be modelled with a linear transformation in the case of coloured papers, the spectra collected with the CP and the ISs differed significantly in the case of vegetation samples. Regarding the spectral indices calculated from the reflectance data collected with the three devices, their mean values were in the range of the corresponding standard deviations in the case of broadleaved leaf type. Larger differences in optical leaf properties of spruce needles collected with the CP and ISs are implicated from the different measurement procedure due to needle-like leaf where shoots with spatially oriented needles were measured with the CP and individual needles with the IS. The study shows that a direct comparison between the spectra collected with two devices is not advisable as spectrally dependent offsets may likely exist. We propose that the future studies shall focus on standardisation of measurement procedures so that open access spectral libraries could serve as a reliable input for modelling of optical properties on a leaf level.

Land cover is one of the key terrestrial variables used for monitoring and as input for modelling in support of achieving the United Nations Strategical Development Goals. Global and Continental Land Cover Products (GCLCs) aim to provide the required harmonized information background across areas; thus, they are not being limited by national or other administrative nomenclature boundaries and their production approaches. Moreover, their increased spatial resolution, and consequently their local relevance, is of high importance for users at a local scale. During the last decade, several GCLCs were developed, including the Global Historical Land-Cover Change Land-Use Conversions (GLC), the Globeland-30 (GLOB), Corine-2012 (CLC) and GMES/ Copernicus Initial Operation High Resolution Layers (GIOS). Accuracy assessment is of high importance for product credibility towards incorporation into decision chains and implementation procedures, especially at local scales. The present study builds on the collaboration of scientists participating in the Global Observations of Forest Cover—Global Observations of Land Cover Dynamics (GOFC-GOLD), South Central and Eastern European Regional Information Network (SCERIN). The main objective is to quantitatively evaluate the accuracy of commonly used GCLCs at selected representative study areas in the SCERIN geographic area, which is characterized by extreme diversity of landscapes and environmental conditions, heavily affected by anthropogenic impacts with similar major socio-economic drivers. The employed validation strategy for evaluating and comparing the different products is detailed, representative results for the selected areas from nine SCERIN countries are presented, the specific regional differences are identified and their underlying causes are discussed. In general, the four GCLCs products achieved relatively high overall accuracy rates: 74–98% for GLC (mean: 93.8%), 79–92% for GLOB (mean: 90.6%), 74–91% for CLC (mean: 89%) and 72–98% for GIOS (mean: 91.6%), for all selected areas. In most cases, the CLC product has the lower scores, while the GLC has the highest, closely followed by GIOS and GLOB. The study revealed overall high credibility and validity of the GCLCs products at local scale, a result, which shows expected benefit even for local/regional applications. Identified class dependent specificities in different landscape types can guide the local users for their reasonable usage in local studies. Valuable information is generated for advancing the goals of the international GOFC-GOLD program and aligns well with the agenda of the NASA Land-Cover/Land-Use Change Program to improve the quality and consistency of space-derived higher-level products.