Environmental impact assessment of land consolidation

Abstract

Land consolidation (LC) is an important tool for the improvement of agriculture and rural development, which also includes environmental issues in most of the countries in Europe. This paper presents the most important results of the environmental impact assessment (EIA) of land consolidation, conducted in the municipality of Vršac through a pilot project based on the EU methodology set within the project: “Strengthening Municipal Land Management in Serbia”, supported by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH. During the summer of 2018, field survey was carried out at 90 locations, documenting the natural, semi-natural and man-made landscape elements of ecological or cultural values, assessing their quality and estimating the potential harmful environmental impacts of the land consolidation. The already existing negative impacts of intensive agriculture were also registered, such as abandonment or overgrazing of pastures and meadows, converting grasslands into arable land, soil erosion and habitat fragmentation. Although the area of LC is without natural forest and extremely poor in semi-natural elements of rural landscape, the existing entities were revealed as refuges for protected species. Some of the grassland fragments belonged to protected habitat types. The final categorization of the landscape elements was conducted in three levels. Category I landscape elements had to remain undisturbed; Category II landscape elements could be removed with obligatory ecological compensation, while the Category III landscape elements could be removed without environmental compensation. Recommendations were given pointing out the possibilities for improving the environmental characters of the area by the land consolidation process.

U većini zemalja u Evropi komasacija zemljišta (KZ) predstavlja važnu meru za unapređenje poljoprivrede i ruralnog razvoja, uključujući pitanja životne sredine,. U ovom radu predstavljeni su najvažniji rezultati procene uticaja komasacije na životnu sredinu (EIA) u Opštini Vršac kroz pilot projekat zasnovan na metodologiji EU postavljenoj u okviru projekta: “Strengthening Municipal Land Management in Serbia”, uz podršku Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH. Tokom leta 2018. godine sprovedeno je terensko istraživanje prirodnih, poluprirodnih i veštačkih elemenata predela, ekoloških i kulturnih vrednosti na 90 lokacija. Urađena je procena stanja ovih vrednosti i procena potencijalnih štetnih uticaja komasacije na životnu sredinu. Osmotreni su negativni uticaji intenzivne poljoprivrede, kao što su: napuštanje ili prekomerna ispaša pašnjaka i livada, njihovo pretvaranje u obradivo zemljište, erozija zemljišta i fragmentacija prirodnih staništa. Iako je područje KZ bez prirodne šume i izuzetno siromašno prirodnim elementima ruralnog pejzaža, postojeće celine su otkrivene kao utočišta za zaštićene vrste. Neki od fragmenata travne vegetacije pripadali su zaštićenim tipovima staništa. Konačna kategorizacija elemenata pejzaža sprovedena je u tri nivoa. Elementi predela I kategorije – koji ostaju nenarušeni (ne smeju se uklanjati); II kategorija – elementi pejzaža neutralnog karaktera sa obaveznom ekološkom kompenzacijom; III kategorija – elementi pejzaža koji se uklanjaju bez ekološke naknade. Date su preporuke kojima se ukazuje na mogućnosti za poboljšanje ekoloških karakteristika područja procesom komasacije.