Food production became particularly challenging in our current food system under the conditions of the ecological crisis, including climate change. According to our political-ecological approach, landscape transformations and the everyday experiences of agricultural producers are partly the result of uneven geographical development and vice versa, industrial agriculture contributes to uneven development through the production of nature and landscape. By focusing on one of Hungary’s most vulnerable landscapes undergoing profound land use transformation, the Sand Ridge within the Danube–Tisza Interfluve, we aim (1) to trace the production of nature and accompanied landscape transformation caused by extractivist practices (industrial agriculture, forestry, solar extractivism) and the integration into global food systems; (2) to reveal the experiences of farmersand (3) the ways farming can contribute to landscape regeneration and food system transformation. Based on documentary and GIS data analysis, expert (11), oral history (23) and focus-group (2) interviews with farmers and farmworkers our research shows that the aridification of the Sand Ridge is not only caused by seemingly “external” processes of climate change, but by “internal” processes of extractivist agricultural production which is interlinked with the world economy through trade. Historically, agricultural landscapes have been produced through trade relations integrated into the global economy, increasing aridification through drainage and large-scale afforestation, both resulting in the marginalization of pasturing as a livelihood system. The recent emergence of the Sand Ridge as an energy periphery under solar extractivism contributes to the further marginalization of pasturing and small-scale food production. Landscape regeneration and food system transformation goes hand in hand. Regenerative practices in agriculture are hindered by how the Sand Ridge is integrated to the global economy. Still, small-scale farmers (and pastoralists) have agency in regenerating the landscape through building regionally more embedded food system alternatives.
Under state socialist planning, large housing estates were built as inclusive, community-centred environments. These spaces were particularly safe for women and children, reinforced by intense social control and close neighbourhood ties. Our study examines the transformation and use of public spaces in post-socialist housing estates, with a particular focus on vulnerable social groups. The research sample area was the Central Housing Estate of Budapest-Pesterzsébet (20th district). The research is based on a complex methodology; in addition to secondary methods, we conducted quantitative and qualitative primary research (resident questionnaire survey, walking interviews/in-depth field interviews, mental map studies, and mapping of pedestrian movement patterns). According to our findings, community areas that were previously actively used have now mostly become underused, neglected spaces that pose a risk to safety. These changes particularly affect young and middle-aged women and young people, limiting their movement and participation in urban life. Research on pedestrian space utilisation has shown that residents‘ spatial movement basically follows traditional routes, avoiding originally protected and traffic-free routes. This proves that socially oriented planning and the physical infrastructure created as a result do not, in themselves, guarantee the creation of inclusive, safe spaces that can be occupied by communities. A static public space that maintains its former characteristics can lose its social base. For the population to return to community areas, it is necessary to conduct a detailed assessment of the needs of different age groups and genders, and to take them into account in urban planning and development.
There are many quantitative analyses focusing on regional differences in Europe including Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). However, while in the West, there are running discussions on theories of uneven development aiming at understanding causes of inequalities, analyses from CEE are scarcely linked to these theoretical debates.The aim of this paper is to join the discussions on uneven development by exploring statistically measurable characteristics, driving forces and courses of it. A quantitative analysis grounded in a political economy approach methodologically and the uneven development framework theoretically is presented with a focus on the evolution of spaces and places of underdevelopment. The comparative analysis covers countries of CEE and situates the findings within the broader context of uneven development on the European semi-periphery. The article demonstrates how uneven development provides a powerful framework for understanding regional inequalities in CEE. The results indicate spatial differentiation since the early 1990s, characterized by simultaneous processes of equalization and differentiation across geographic space. The findings suggest that these inequalities are not temporary or accidental, but rather reflect an inherent mode of operation of capitalist development in the region.
Drawing on Neil Smith’s “seesaw” metaphor of uneven development, this paper examines how historical cycles of industrial investment and disinvestment were/are lived, experienced, and narrated in Budapest’s former Ganz-MÁVAG manufacturing site. Methodologically, we combine extensive document analysis and qualitative interviewing, including non-conventional interview formats. Empirically, the findings show that “up” and “down” positions on capital’s seesaw were experienced in highly ambivalent and differentiated ways: socialist-era “being up” could be narrated simultaneously as security and pride, but also as constraint and frustration, while post-socialist “being down” unfolded as an affectively intense rupture, often entailing not only job loss but the withdrawal of paternalistic care, community life, and local infrastructures. The subsequent “up again” trajectory was brought about by reinvestment through trade/logistics, although frequently framed through cultural distance and ethnicised boundary-making. Overall, we conclude that Smith’s seesaw is not merely apolitical-economic model but a heuristic for tracing how uneven development becomes classed, ethnicised, and spatialised in everyday life – and that the form of reinvestment matters at least as much as its magnitude.
This paper explores the synthesis of political-economy perspectives on uneven development with everyday-focused social-theoretical approaches, specifically examining gentrification through the lens of working-class residents’ experiences. The study argues that while uneven development imposes rigid structural constraints, it also serves to differentiate the working class and its internal constituents. The research is situated within the Central and Eastern European context, focusing on two Hungarian case study locations: Nagysándortelep in Debrecen and the Zsolnay district in Pécs. The methodology employs a multi-scalar approach, combining historical analysis with qualitative insights from narrative, semi-structured and focus group interviews. The analysis traces the evolution of both districts from their origins as industrial working-class colonies consolidated during the capitalist processes of the late 19th century through subsequent periods of socialiststate-led disinvestment and neoliberal urban strategies of capital reinvestment. By studying the current relationship of workers to slow, sporadic, and spontaneous gentrification within this urban-historical context, mutually reinforcing and undermining moments of structure and everyday practices emerge, exposing the dialectical relationship between the causes and consequences of gentrification. By bridging the gap between structural theories and micro-level agency, the paper contributes to a more nuanced understanding of how the production of space is negotiated and contested within the specific urban trajectories of the CEE region.
This article examines the functional dimension of cross-border integration in European border regions, focusing on everyday cross-border flows as key mechanisms shaping territorial integration beyond formal institutional arrangements. It addresses the growing mismatch between dense socio-economic interactions across borders and the often-limited capacity of institutionalized cross-border cooperation to stabilize or govern these processes. Drawing on relational and flow-based perspectives in border studies and regional geography, the article conceptualises functional integration as a practice-based process rooted in regular mobility, service use, and economic exchange. The analysis is based on a critical synthesis of existing theoretical and policy-oriented literature. It introduces cross-border functional areas as an analytical construct capturing the spatial imprint of stabilized cross-border interactions. Rather than treating these areas as formal territorial units or normative policy objectives, the article highlights their dynamic, sectorally differentiated, and politically contingent character. Particular attention is paid to structural asymmetries between national systems, the selective permeability of borders, and the vulnerability of functional integration in highly regulated policy domains. The main contribution of the article lies in clarifying the analytical value of functionality for understanding both the potential and the limits of cross-border integration. By decoupling functional integration from institutional density, the article provides a conceptual framework for interpreting uneven integration patterns and for future empirical research on cross-border governance and resilience in European borderlands.
Cultural terraces were often constructed to improve agriculture. Some terraces are still in use, while others have been abandoned. Knowledge of their locations is important for their preservation or potential reuse. There have been several attempts worldwide to create a register of terraces. In Slovenia, a suitable register has not yet been created due to heavy overgrowth and significant differences in cultural terrace types across different regions of the country. This research proposes detecting terraces using a LiDAR digital elevation model, geoinformation tools, and additional spatial data. The method detects sharp changes in slope data and creates polygons where such changes are detected in close proximity. The main advantage of the method is that it does not require any training samples yet still provides accurate results despite the diversity of terraced areas. We applied the method in Slovenia and achieved an accuracy of 91 percent, a precision of 76 percent, and a recognition value of 66 percent in one test area, and 92, 47, and 65 percent in another designated test area. To achieve higher accuracy, the input settings can be adapted to regional characteristics, which confirms earlier findings that terraces in Slovenia exhibit high diversity.
Urban regeneration interventions are known for attracting local and foreign investment in cities to improve neighbourhoods; however, the ongoing increase in these interventions has been associated with gentrification and the displacement of minority groups. With the growing scholarship on justice and urban transformation, this paper contributes to this literature by providing a systematic review and content analysis that examines how the concept of justice is conceptualised and operationalised across the global arena. Therefore, we offer a novel integrative theoretical framework of just urban regeneration that connects gentrification processes to broader debates on social justice in urban geography. Following the PRISMA method, the review examined 42 peer-reviewed articles that focus on urban regeneration (not urban governance, urban policy, or urban planning in general), and how justice is understood, interpreted, and reflected in urban regeneration, including justice typology (social, economic, environmental, spatial) and dimensions (distributive, procedural, recognition, etc.). The mixed-method approach revealed that the scholarship of urban regeneration is largely articulated through distributive, procedural, and recognition dimensions; issues of community displacement and gentrification emerge through distributive concerns, while procedural and recognition justice foreground the participation of marginalised communities. Finally, findings suggest that urban and spatial justice are linked to decision-making processes, highlighting how governance structures shape both the production and experience of injustice.
One of the most challenging problems in hydrometeorology is the quantification of potential evapotranspiration (PET) rates. The aim of this study was to identify PET models that can reliably approximate the FAO Penman– Monteith reference evapotranspiration or available PET data provided by the Hungarian Meteorological Service (HungaroMet) for Hungary while requiring fewer meteorological input variables. Nevertheless, an understanding of PET values and trends can offer invaluable insights into the drought sensitivity of an area. We analysed the performance of 18 PET models for Hungary based on meteorological data from 2010 to 2022 and identified and ranked the most relevant ones. The PET values were calculated at 16 meteorological stations using different models and subsequently ranked according to six distinct statistical indicators. As a basis for comparison, data from the nearest pan-evaporation measuring station and FAO Penman-Monteith (FAO-PM) values were calculated. PET provided by HungaroMet was used as the reference potential evaporation value. Model performances were ranked on a 1–120 scale. Our results showed that the temperature-based Oudin model had the most accurate performance, but in general, the radiation-based models were the most reliable. The spatial distribution of the data indicates that the performance of the PET models is somewhat inferior in the eastern and western regions of the country in comparison to that observed in the central areas. Our results are likely applicable to the temperate zone of similar subhumid climates.
Organic fertilizers are widely used around the world, because they support the circular economy, sustainable agriculture, and improved soil quality, as well as carbon sequestration. State-of-the-art, process-based models can simulate the environmental impacts of organic fertilizer use and can address issues like the effect of fertilizer amount and type on crop production, soil fertility, soil organic matter accumulation, nitrate leaching, and greenhouse gas emission. However, the lack of information on the proper attribute settings for fertilizer inputs in the models hampers their application. In this study, the main goal was to support the setting of organic fertilizer attributes for process-based model applications. A comprehensive data collection was performed to gather organic fertilizer attributes that are relevant for the carbon and nitrogen cycle-related simulations. Based on the literature search, representative values are presented that can be instantly used in the models as generalized settings for several farmyard manure and slurry types. We also addressed the question of how fertilizer attribute-setting-related uncertainties propagate to the simulation outputs. We used the Biome-BGCMuSo biogeochemical model for that purpose with a maize monoculture simulation. The results indicate that manure type specific attribute setting is crucial for the nitrogen balance related model variables. For soil nitrous oxide efflux, improper composition settings can severely distort the simulation results. Sensitivity analysis suggested that dry matter content and organic nitrogen content are the two most important manure attributes that modellers must properly adjust. For slurry, the dry matter and ammonium content must be constrained for proper simulation results. The study supports crop and biogeochemical model setup with ready-to-use pragmatic information.
The potential changes in extreme hot temperature (represented by TX35, i.e. the number of days with maximum temperature above 35 °C) are analysed, using the latest global climate model simulations ensemble mean of CMIP6, available in the new tool of the IPCC, namely, the Interactive Atlas. The analysis is carried out over Europe with a special focus on Central and Southern Europe. Our aim is to evaluate the spatial patterns within the projected changes in the period 2081–2100 that can be further used in several sectors, e.g. in the health sector, which is especially affected by the potential increase of extremely hot conditions. For this purpose, the projected changes of TX35 are compared to the reference-period 1995–2014 for four available scenarios from the newest scenario-family, namely, SSP1-2.6, SSP2-4.5, SSP3-7.0, and SSP5-8.5 representing different mitigation and adaptation challenges. As the projected increase is not limited to summer, the monthly-scale analysis is extended to the period from May to September. A novel approach is used to investigate the major factors in the projected changes, namely, six zonal segments are selected over Europe, covering the relevant parts of the continent with appropriate distances between them. The most important driving factors of the projected changes of TX35 are identified as follows: (i) the differences between regions due to their north-south or east-west locations (i.e. zonal and continental effects), (ii) elevation above sea level, (iii) the different anthropogenic effects (i.e. different scenarios). The results show that the key factor in the projected changes is the difference between anthropogenic effects. Furthermore, the sea-land surface differences also have substantial effect on the projected changes of TX35, especially in the southern regions. Continentality and elevation show only smaller effects overall.
Education plays a crucial role in shaping future generations. This is also the case for the formation of environmental attitudes. Hungary is a country with abundant water resources; however, fostering students with a strong water attitude is especially important for the future, even in such nations. The objective of this study was to adapt and validate the Water Attitude Scale (WAS) questionnaire for use with primary school students in Hungary. A total of 964 students from grades 5–8, enrolled in twenty schools located in Southern Transdanubia, completed the questionnaire. The results of the confirmatory factor analysis indicated that the original factor structure was not an optimal fit for the data, prompting the development of a new four-factor model through exploratory factor analysis. The revised factors were: 1) The Value of Water and Responsibility, 2) Awareness and Education, 3) Water Usage at Home and in Society, and 4) Responsibility and Intervention. Analysis across grade levels revealed that fifth graders showed high initial awareness, which gradually declined in higher grades, while attitudes toward water use improved with age. Responsibility peaked in grade 6 but decreased slightly thereafter. The adapted questionnaire proved to be a reliable and valid tool for assessing water-related attitudes among Hungarian students, making it applicable for both diagnostic purposes in environmental education and as a foundation for longitudinal studies.
The aim of this study is to narrow down the research gap identified while uncovering the impact mechanism of destination familiarity on the revisit intention to the neighbouring countries. The research, justifies the hypothesis established based on the literature review by placing the analysis in the context of Hungary, located in the heart of East-Central Europe, and its relations with the seven neighbouring countries. In addition to the database of the Hungarian Central Statistical Office on the outbound travels of the Hungarian population, we build on the database of a survey conducted in 2023, with representative sampling, under which 400 Hungarian citizens with outbound travel experience were interviewed. The analysis was executed using simple and multivariate statistical methods. It was concluded that travellers of a non-neighbouring country perceive higher familiarity with the given destination, but it is not affecting more the revisit frequency than it is in a neighbouring country. The results will help to understand the tourist mobility between countries in a particular geopolitical situation due to the storms of history. The study highlights management implication and limitations; moreover, proposes directions for future research.
Earlier examinations of the urban heat island (UHI) characteristics in Debrecen revealed unusual behaviour in the years 2010 and 2011, while the following years exhibited characteristics expected according to the literature. The year 2010 in Hungary was characterised by anomalously high precipitation with several extreme events, including two Mediterranean cyclones in the spring, numerous convective systems in the summer, and several slow-moving frontal passages in the autumn. These led – both country-wide and in Debrecen – to record-high annual precipitation, and significant deviations in other meteorological elements like soil moisture and near-surface humidity characteristics. It is possible that the development of the urban heat island (UHI) in Debrecen was also affected. This study investigates the unusual behaviour of the UHI in 2010 and early 2011, focusing on how the excessive precipitation influenced the urban climate. Data from 2010 to 2015 were analysed, originally including temperature, humidity, wind, precipitation, cloud cover and soil moisture measurements from a city and a rural station. The current analysis shows that the high precipitation caused significant changes in soil moisture and relative humidity in the rural area, possibly leading to an increased latent heat flux at the expense of sensible heat. This might have reduced the UHI intensity during both day-time and night-time. With this, the study proposes a potential explanation for how long-term high precipitation can have lasting effects on UHI development, which may contribute to a deeper understanding of the interactions between extreme weather events and urban climate dynamics, which is crucial for urban planning and climate adaptation strategies in the context of climate change.
The article deals with the restructuring of a region focused on intensive agriculture at a time when agriculture ceases to be a source of wealth. It explores the possibilities of using tourism in an area with a high proportion of arable land without neither significant historical heritage nor natural attractions. The study method is a complex geographical analysis that determines the conditions under which the transformation of the micro region takes place. This analysis results in an overview of the microregion’s most significant strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and threats. The applied solution is the use of a specific brand, using the significant presence of wine culture. The use of this brand for marketing is presented. The increase in competition ability is based on the introduction of the idea to promote the area under the brand Blue Mountains and the use of other ideas that significantly differentiate the studied region from its neighbours. The key prerequisites are the cooperation of the actors. The main contribution of the article lies in the study of local experiences with tourism promotion and place marketing as one of the possibilities for transformation into a post-productive economy.
