•Advantages of integral planning of recreational areas for urban population on both sides of the Italian-Slovenian border.•Landscape ecology findings support the preservation of the spatial ...distribution of key urban green areas.•Urban forests, parks and green corridors form an indispensable pattern of a green urban network connecting both cities.•Old maps and satellite images are suitable tools in defining the primal structure of forests.
The provision of health and well-being is one of the fundamental tasks of urban green infrastructure. This requires a new estimation of the strategic distribution and accessibility of green areas. Gorizia and Nova Gorica are two cities lying next to each other on either side of the border between Italy and Slovenia. Due to political circumstances, they developed independently, which applies to their green areas as well. Urban city areas and other land cover classes were extracted from the CORINE Land Cover map; the digital data were processed using ArcGIS. At the landscape hierarchical level, the importance of natural vegetation remnants was assessed based on current land use maps. Forest patches, hedgerows, remnants of natural vegetation, and spontaneous afforestation on abandoned agricultural lands were detected and delineated using CNES digital images and digital orthophoto images. The green areas positioned in the two interior city areas were delineated separately according to data on the two cities’ green areas. We estimated the forest continuum separately, based on the oldest cartographic sources from the end of the 18th century, the Franziscean cadastre from the early 19th century, and the Italian cadastre from 1940. We estimated the interior or core area of the forest patches based on studies of habitat fragmentation and the depth of the forest edge. Our research theory is based on the proven sustainability of indispensable spatial patterns emerging from landscape ecology that are especially necessary in altered (rural, urban) landscapes. Our results show that the most important pattern of green areas supporting the well-being of both cities’ inhabitants can be achieved by the mutual development of the two major urban forests, each situated in one of the cities, in addition to riparian corridors and bits of nature represented by public parks. Collaborative planning between the two cities would enhance common benefits, including future economic and social influences and innovations.
The Gorica Hills (Slovene Goriška brda and also Brda) represent a part of the hilly cultural landscapes in the northern Mediterranean. Because of the historical development of the states, the Gorica ...Hills are situated on the Slovenian western border. The Gorica Hills have been a synonym for a cultivated landscape since the Middle Ages. New studies have changed the pre-existing belief that the cultivation method and crop types have not changed through the centuries, except for the introduction of corn and potatoes. However, detailed descriptions of the cultivation methods and the types of predominant crops in the cadastre show that during the nineteenth century, and especially in the period after World War I, the cultivation method of the vine and the types of crops, in fact, changed significantly. At this point, the nineteenth century can be seen as the period of the final introduction of corn and potatoes. Thus, the cultural landscape of the Gorica Hills is the result of the responses to inside and outside economic and cultural pulses. The paper will point out the advantages of the land cadastre reports that were used in the reconstruction of the cultural landscape. It will also present the questions that have remained unanswered and are left open for further research.
In the current situation the district heating system supplies the 32% of the total thermal consumption in the City of Velika Gorica. The main issue in the district heating system is the utilization ...of 14 small and distributed heat plants, each providing heat to a separate and individually disconnected heating grid. Reduction of costs and CO2 emissions can be reached with a high penetration of renewable sources. The aim of this paper is to evaluate and design the integration of a Central Solar Heating Plant with Seasonal Storage into the district heating system of the City. An economic assessment was made with a pessimistic and an optimistic prediction of the solar heat cost for ground mounted collectors and roof mounted collectors. The seasonal storage was chosen to be pit thermal energy storage; the system was modeled as a low-temperature district heating system with the real thermal demands of a district heating plant.
The international scientific meeting of young humanists, held on 14 October 2015 at the University of Nova Gorica, focused on the topics of Slavic languages at the crossroads of cultures.
