Typology of Slovenia’s Alpine Region with Emphasis on Land Use and Changes in Land Use

Abstract

The article presents the elaboration and contents of the typology of Slovenia’s alpine region. The smallest spatial unit of the study is the cadastral municipality (total 150), for which I assembled numerous data on land use and changes in land use, surface elements, and sociogeographical factors. To illustrate regional differences in landscape elements, I first divided Slovenia’s alpine region into six mezzo-regions. In establishing land use and land use changes, and their correlation with surface elements and sociogeographical characteristics, I determined that the cadastral municipalities within each of the defined mezzo-regions do not necessarily have similar properties but may rather have similar properties with neighbouring cadastral municipalities in other mezzo-regions. This knowledge and numerous data layers were the basis for the elaboration of a synthetical typology of Slovenia’s alpine region. With the help of the hierarchical method of classification into groups and factor analyses, seven types (groups) of cadastral municipalities of the alpine region appeared whose borders did not match with the defined mezzo-regions.