Mojca Golobič’s research while affiliated with University of Ljubljana and other places


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Publications (44)


Cultural ecosystem services of landscape elements and their contribution to landscape identity: The case of Slovenia
  • Article
  • Full-text available

December 2023

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72 Reads

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4 Citations

Ecological Indicators

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Mojca Golobič

This paper shows a novel approach of assessing landscape elements and their contribution to CES using two methods of data collection. The paper attempts to bridge the identification gap between CES and structures providing them by introducing different methods of 1) field evaluation, allowing interaction in person and 2) through an online survey, which, although restrictive in terms of interaction, facilitates the processing of the collected data. A checklist of landscape elements important for CES is proposed and investigated-which elements are highly valued, where they are valued, and how they are valued across Slovenia as a case example. The sequence of methods includes literature review, field surveying in 18 test areas, and validation through an online questionnaire. The results indicate that identity is the common denominator of landscape elements' CES value, linked to both widespread and region-specific elements assessment. Vegetation and water elements are strongly associated with CES of aesthetic and health. The built elements and cultivated elements are associated with heritage and traditional knowledge. Both field research and online surveying have their strengths and limitations. However, conclusions can be drawn about landscape elements important for identity and other CES. The study highlights the complexity of individual perceptions and the need for different evaluation methods, including in-person and online surveys. The methodology used can be applied, with some adaptations, to specific sites depending on the planning problem, as well as a research approach for fundamental or detailed CES and landscape evaluation studies.

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Fig. 1. Front cover of the 2021 Republic of Slovenia Report Card for Physical Activity in Children and Youth.
Challenges of social change: The 2021 Republic of Slovenia report card on physical activity of children and adolescents

June 2023

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129 Reads

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3 Citations

Journal of Exercise Science & Fitness

Background: Slovenian children are facing considerable health challenges from the rapid social changes that influence their opportunity to engage in daily physical activity. Objective: To overlay the social changes to the established Report Card model as a means of contextualising the extreme changes in physical activity and fitness observed over several years. Methods: Benchmarks were graded for 10 core indicators, plus two (Sleep, Seasonal Variations). Active Healthy Kids Slovenia members met (predominantly via zoom) liaising with team leader(s) on a flexible, individual basis, based on coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) regulations, over the ∼2-year assessment period of the project. Data were separated to the years prior to, 'pre' 2018-2020, and 'during' the global pandemic (2020-2021). Where sufficient data existed for both timeframes, grades were averaged to produce an overall grade. Results: Grade results are expressed as pre/during/final grade, where the final grade (bolded) is a straight average of the two preceding time epochs: Overall Physical Activity (A-/A-/A-), Organized Sport and Physical Activity (C+/C/C), Active Play (D/C+/C), Active Transport (C/INC/C), Sedentary Behaviour (B/C/C+), Physical Fitness (A+/A-/A), Family and Peers (B+/INC/B+), Schools (A/A/A), Community and Environment (A+/A+/A+), Government (A/F/D), Sleep (D-/INC/D-), Seasonal Variations (D/C-/D+). Conclusion: Although Slovenia has some of the most consistently physically-active children in the world, the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic exerted significant reductions in physical activity opportunities, and especially when coupled with funding re-distributions, resulted in the steepest decline of child physical fitness observed within the >35-year history of Slovenia's well-established national fitness surveillance system.


Defining Landscapes, and Their Importance for National Identity-A Case Study from Slovenia

June 2021

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251 Reads

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10 Citations

Sustainability

Although each landscape has its own identity, only some of them are recognized as nationally important because of their cultural and natural values and their contribution to national identity. In Slovenia, these landscapes are listed in the national Spatial Development Strategy (adopted in 2004). However, this list was neither supported by implementation instruments nor integrated in any conservation or management policy documents and was poorly integrated into spatial plans. The aim of this research was to renew the methodology for identifying landscapes of national importance. The methods included in-depth interviews with experts, an online questionnaire, par-ticipatory workshops, and field visits. The questionnaire results showed that only eight land-scapes from the original list of 62 were explicitly recognized as nationally important, which con-firmed the hypothesis that the initial method was not transparent and that the criteria were bi-ased. The proposed approach included the following criteria: (1) representativeness, (2) the quali-ty of the landscape features, and (3) the cultural and scientific value. The methodology was ac-companied with the list of landscape features and landscape types that are important for Slove-nian national identity; recommendations for implementing the method on national, regional, and local levels; and the general guidelines for spatial planning and management of these landscapes.


Chapter 3 Territorial impact assessment: a policy assessment-like strategic environmental assessment in action

March 2021

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36 Reads

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5 Citations

This chapter explores the use of objectives as part of Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA). As suggested by the title, it does this by considering objectives in several ways. To illustrate the points made in our discussion we draw on UK practice examples, own research and also from international SEA literature. Looking at how objectives are set for SEA, how objectives of SEA are drawn up and how SEA scrutinises objectives in policies, plans and programmes shows how, far from being a simple procedural technique, the use of objectives is embedded in the politics of the environment, sustainable development and decision-making.


The ESPON EATIA: A Qualitative Approach to Territorial Impact Assessment

November 2020

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40 Reads

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3 Citations

This chapter presents the results of the European ESPON EATIA research project in which a Territorial Impact Assessment (TIA) methodology was developed for administrations in EU member states in order to inform their national positions in European draft directives’ negotiation processes. Rather than applying another EU-wide top-down quantitative modelling approach based on indicators, the EATIA project explored the possibility to use a qualitative bottom-up approach that is simple to perform and comprehend for regional and/or local stakeholders, and national administrations of the 27 EU member states. The project was conducted between 2010 and 2012 in a transnational manner, connecting four universities and ministries, responsible for planning from the UK, Portugal, Slovenia and the Netherlands. The main output of the project is a TIA framework (Fischer TB, Sykes O, Gore T, Marot N, Golobič M, Pinho P, … Perdicoulis A. Territorial impact assessment of European Draft Directives—the emergence of a new policy assessment instrument. Eur Plan Stud 23(3): 433–451, 2015), based on a process consisting of screening, scoping, assessment and evaluation, with possible techniques allocated to each of these stages, and proposed governance arrangements. Testing of the TIA framework on various EU directives (e.g. Natura 2000, SEVESO) has shown that the approach meets the expectations of experts, but its success to a large extent rests on the commitment of the governing stakeholders to engage with and contribute to the process.


Contentious eye-catchers: Perceptions of landscapes changed by solar power plants in Slovenia

June 2020

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154 Reads

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38 Citations

Renewable Energy

While renewable energy sources enjoy high public support, projects are rarely implemented without opposition. The term energy landscapes indicates that landscape change is amongst the most frequent issues. This study researched lay people’s perceptions of landscapes changed by solar power plants. The first objective was to discover how likely solar power plants are to be noticed in the landscape. The second objective was to determine the associations observers make when spotting a solar power plant. The data was collected by participatory photography and focus groups. Participants visited six solar power plants. The results show that they are highly noticeable and contentious objects. Participants who understood the landscape as a rural idyll disapproved of solar power plants, while for those who perceived the landscape through a utilitarian narrative, the (mis)fit of the solar power plant depended on its relation to the surrounding landscape structure. Landscape degradation was contrasted with low-carbon energy and developmental benefits. The results provide evidence on the interdependence of visual and non-visual factors and suggest improvements in planning and design of solar power plants. While the method gives a rich in-depth insight into landscape perception, it is also context dependent and needs further research to obtain more generalisable results.


Quantitative assessment of agricultural landscape heterogeneity

May 2020

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79 Reads

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21 Citations

Ecological Indicators

The biodiversity of agricultural landscapes is strongly dependent on extensive traditional management practices and the proportion of natural and semi-natural habitats within the landscape. Within Europe, contemporary agricultural management practices, as well as nature conservation regimes are often oriented toward establishing suitable preconditions for maintaining biodiversity; this requires operational methods to assess and monitor the effects of policy measures on landscape heterogeneity. In this article a method for evaluating landscape heterogeneity of agricultural landscapes is proposed, which measures two main components: (1) land cover heterogeneity and (2) landscape features’ heterogeneity. The first can be defined as a function of compositional (number of land cover categories) and configurational (distribution of land cover categories) heterogeneity, whereas the latter is the result of landscape features diversity (the number of different types of landscape features) and landscape features count (the overall number of landscape features). Considering the proposed index, the heterogeneity of agricultural landscapes is ranked into three classes. The proposed land use and landscape features inventory, combined with the landscape heterogeneity evaluation index, could serve as a basis for the development of landscape management practices, which aim to fulfill objectives of several EU policies (e.g. Common Agricultural Policy, Natura 2000). Nevertheless, spatial context, as well as nature protection and agricultural objectives need to be considered when applying the proposed index in management practice.


prostorski-nacrtovalci-21-stol PenkoSeidl Golobič

December 2018

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150 Reads

Green infrastructure as a contemporary spatial planning approach has been established over the last twenty years and it can be defined as a synthesis approach of the former landscape/ecological planning approaches. Selected planning approaches that led to the development of green infrastructure are presented in this chapter. The majority of these approaches have developed as a respond to two triggers: industrial revolution at the transition from the 18th to the 19th century, which resulted in pollution, expansion of cities, and consequently degradation of the living environment. The second important trigger was environmental crisis in the 20th century, which established nature conservation and environmental protection as the core issues of contemporary society. Therefore the presented approaches could be classified into three groups: those that aim towards achieving better living conditions for people, those that aim towards preserving and/ or improving the natural environment, and those that focus on both goals. Green infrastructure as a contemporary planning approach encompasses planning methods from landscape/ecological planning and knowledge on (natural and social) systems functioning from natural and social sciences. The main emphasis of green infrastructure concept is that “green” elements are not seen as a residual from development but as a potential for development of the system. The main principles of green infrastructure are: (1) hierarchical structure, (2) multifunctionality, (3) heterogeneity of individual elements and a system as a whole, and, last but not least, (4) connectivity of the system. Zelena infrastruktura se kot sodoben prostorskonačrtovalski koncept uveljavlja predvsem v zadnjih dvajsetih letih in pomeni nekakšno sintezo predhodnih oblik krajinskega/ekološkega planiranja. V prispevku so predstavljeni izbrani načrtovalski pristopi, ki jih štejemo za predhodnike zelene infrastrukture. Posamezni pristopi so se v zgodovini pojavili kot odgovor na dva pomembnejša sprožilca: industrijsko revolucijo na prehodu iz 18. v 19. stoletje, ki je povzročila slabšanje kakovosti življenjskega okolja v mestih, ter okoljsko krizo v 20. stoletju, ki je ohranjanje narave in varstvo okolja postavila v ospredje zanimanja javnosti in delovanja civilne družbe. Predstavljene pristope tako v grobem lahko uvrstimo v tri skupine: v tiste, ki prvenstveno stremijo k izboljšanju bivalnega okolja, tiste, ki skušajo ohraniti ali izboljšati kakovost naravnega okolja, ter sintezne, ki hkrati izpolnjujejo oba cilja. Zelena infrastruktura kot sodoben načrtovalski pristop združuje načrtovalske metode iz krajinskega/ekološkega planiranja ter znanja o delovanju (naravnih in družbenih) sistemov iz naravoslovnih in družboslovnih ved. Glavni poudarek koncepta zelene infrastrukture je, da »zelenih« prvin ne razume kot ostanka razvoja, temveč poudarja njihov strateški potencial in izhodišče za načrtovanje. Za sam sistem so značilni (1) hierarhičnost zgradbe in delovanja, (2) multifunkcionalnost, (3) heterogenost posameznih elementov in sistema v celoti ter, nenazadnje, (4) povezljivost sistema v celoto.


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Citations (28)


... Čeprav je v Sloveniji pomen KES poudarjen v nekaterih državnih in regionalnih dokumentih, KES pa so bile tudi predmet nekaj nedavnih raziskav (npr. Ribeiro in Šmid Hribar, 2019;Kostanjšek in Golobič, 2023), niso izrecno upoštevane v nobenem državnem, regionalnem ali lokalnem predpisu, kar lahko pripelje do neustreznih načrtovalskih odločitev (Žlender, 2021a). Zato je ključno proučevati metode merjenja in validacije KES, saj se lahko s tem zajamejo dejavniki, ki jih drugače ni preprosto kartirati. ...

Reference:

Proučevanje potenciala za zagotavljanje kulturnih ekosistemskih storitev pri načrtovanju zelene infrastrukture v obmestni krajini: pristop z matriko strokovnih ocen
Cultural ecosystem services of landscape elements and their contribution to landscape identity: The case of Slovenia

Ecological Indicators

... Advances in surveillance will allow regional, national and global stakeholders to confidently identify and respond to trends in movement behaviours and inequalities in these behaviours [32,35]. Improved surveillance would also allow stakeholders to assess the impact of policy change or societal change, for example, the impacts of climate change, economic crises, political instability and pandemic mitigation measures [11,36]. Greater collaboration between experts in movement behaviours and policymakers might also prevent unintended harms from policy, or at least identify unintended policy consequences. ...

Challenges of social change: The 2021 Republic of Slovenia report card on physical activity of children and adolescents

Journal of Exercise Science & Fitness

... A brief history of the semantics of the terms and how they have been delimited and (re)signified becomes necessary. This can only be achieved philosophically, because all these terms existed and were explored in this field before the emergence of other fields such as sociology, psychology, urbanism, etc. [2][3][4][5]7,8,11,[24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34]. In the second part of the study, we apply the research methodology to measure the intensity with which environmental perceptions are manifested at the level of the rural population [35,36]. ...

Defining Landscapes, and Their Importance for National Identity-A Case Study from Slovenia

Sustainability

... As we discussed, The SEA acts based on examining of activities with a substantial concerns in environmental impact. Within the EU cross-border territories, this process has to do with regulations and agreements follow the environmental policies that target upcoming results of proposed management action (Marot et al., 2021). Moreover, it plays a significant role in providing environmental evidence for strategic planning and environmental quality protection or rehabilitation. ...

Chapter 3 Territorial impact assessment: a policy assessment-like strategic environmental assessment in action
  • Citing Chapter
  • March 2021

... ISK as a resource should not be discriminated against as primitive knowledge as this would streamline and demoralize participants who are the custodians of such vital knowledge and wisdom (McCall, 2021;Zolkafli et al., 2017c). The bearing engraved in ISK could be significant to experts, especially in understanding landscape unit transitions and other related factors that influence transformation (Golobic and Marusic, 2007). ...

Developing an integrated approach for public participation: a case of land-use planning in Slovenia
  • Citing Article
  • January 2007

Environment and Planning B Planning and Design

... Just like the TEQUILA model, the STEMA uses traditional sources of data, mostly related to the economic dimension of development (Prezioso, 2020). The same goes for the ESPON EATIA (Marot et al., 2020) and the simplified QUICK_TIA (Ferreira & Verschelde, 2020). Crucially, all these four ESPON TIA models are supported by existing sources of quantitative databases at the EU level (mostly NUTS 2 and 3), collected from several sources and organised in the ESPON database, which has data related to agriculture and fisheries, economy, education, environment and energy, governance, health and safety, information society, labour market, population and living conditions, science and technology, territorial structure, transport and accessibility. ...

The ESPON EATIA: A Qualitative Approach to Territorial Impact Assessment
  • Citing Chapter
  • November 2020

... Rezultati raziskave bodo prispevali k oblikovanju pokrajinske politike, posebej ukrepov in strategij pri upravljanju kulturnih pokrajin (na primer Urbanc 2002;Penko Seidl in Golobič 2020; in k uresničevanju Evropske konvencije o krajini (European landscape… 2000). Ta izpostavlja, da je pokrajina temeljna sestavina evropske naravne in kulturne dediščine, ki prispeva k človekovi blaginji in utrjevanju evropske prepoznavnosti. ...

Quantitative assessment of agricultural landscape heterogeneity
  • Citing Article
  • May 2020

Ecological Indicators

... Innovations in technology have the power to transform landscapes, introducing innovative infrastructure or altering land use practices. They may impact landscapes, for instance, through renewable energy installations (e.g., by the installation of solar power plants, Bevk -Golobič 2020) or changes in agricultural practices. Efforts to restore ecosystems can transform a landscape by reintroducing natural features and biodiversity (e.g., for rewilding and its context in Alpine landscape, see Rippa 2023). ...

Contentious eye-catchers: Perceptions of landscapes changed by solar power plants in Slovenia
  • Citing Article
  • June 2020

Renewable Energy

... In this regard, the first reports on the impact of these lockdowns showed a decline in children's motor skills and physical fitness after the first wave of the pandemic in 2020 [10]. In addition, the proposed measures eliminated the possibility of regular contact with other children and deprived babies of an essential part of the stimuli necessary for their development [11]. In this sense, studies on babies' abilities before and after the pandemic are non-existent. ...

Results from Slovenia’s 2018 Report Card on Physical Activity for Children and Youth

Journal of Physical Activity and Health

... Despite the environmental progress achieved and the most recent strengthening of the ecological dimension [3], the role of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in the protection and enhancement of the rural landscape could be improved. The most recent studies carried out in the field of agrienvironmental policy assessment seem to indicate that CAP has not been very effective in achieving environmental and landscape priorities [3][4][5][6][7][8][9]. Currently, the CAP consists of two pillars: the first one includes income support (direct payments) and market measures, while the second includes rural development measures (both national and regional). ...

The effects of EU policies on preserving cultural landscape in the Alps
  • Citing Article
  • August 2018