Environment Ministry launches extensive new landscape atlas

The Ministry of Environment is launching a unique landscape atlas of the Czech Republic. The result of six years work, it contains more than 1200 maps produced by over 300 specialists in 100 institutions. I spoke to the man who initiated the project, Environment Minister Ladislav Miko, and first asked him what purpose such an extensive atlas would serve.

“This is a basic set of geographical information about our territory and we need it for plenty of purposes: for decision making in state administration for example, for science and for education – it will be distributed to schools - etc. It is also a documentation of the present situation in our country, which has a certain historical significance.”

Ladislav Miko, photo: CTK

It is a huge book; it weighs ten kilograms and contains more than 350 pages. What kind of information can we find there?

“It’s actually almost everything you can imagine in terms of territorial information, starting with physical and geographical maps, the waters, climate, energy potential, nature and landscape issues, but also socio-economic issues, issues of transport for example, transport infrastructure and also synthetic maps about the development of Czech landscape and trends for the future.”

As far as I know it also contains pictures or drawings by famous artists. Why is that?

“That’s true. The last chapter of the Atlas is a collection of landscape artists and the reason is very simple. They have been pretty realistic and the pictures show the look of the Czech landscape in particular parts of the Czech Republic in the 19th century. It is a very interesting and important source of information about the development of Czech landscape because you can extrapolate the trends, because there are not many maps available from that time.”

So how has the Czech landscape changed over the years?

Ladislav Miko, photo: CTK

“Probably the most significant and most important change was documented over the last two decades. There is a very large difference in development of most populated areas of the Czech Republic where the intensification of agriculture especially is the major factor and the border areas and more distant areas where the abandonment is very visible. The abandonment on the one side can be positive for the biodiversity for example but only in case the land remains managed.”

For those who cannot afford the book, there will also be a cheaper and easier-to-handle CD version available.