Basic Principles of Sustainable Land Use Management

The paper is aimed at the presentation of the integrative approach assessment of environmental land use conflicts. It presents basic principles of sustainable land use management. The changes in land use are reflected not only in changes of land cover. They are also the cause of changes in landscape structure and are the main initiation of many environmental problems. From this aspect, it is important to engage the land structure studies not only in the studies of land use forms and land cover, but also in the studies of position and relation in landscape (cause–consequence). To find the cause and casualties of these changes is very important for implementation of rationale landscape utilization. The basic tool for suitable landscape utilization is integrated landscape management as a major instrument of sustainable development. It must be based on understanding landscape systematically as geosystem. The every point of the landscape is representing the integrating scope, scene in which all natural resources are occurring as layers (geological sources, water and soil sources, climate, biotic sources and morphometric parameters) which are mixing together. It is seen as understanding the space as integration of particular natural sources in given area of landscape. Using one source can negatively affect the quality of other sources. For example, intensive use of soil resources can threaten water resources—negative impacts of chemistry, mechanization, and so on. Therefore, land use needs to be assessed on an integrated basis. From aspect of ‘sustainability’, the target is to define such landscape management, which would regulate socio-economic development in landscape with its natural, human, cultural and historical potential. It is based on matching the supply that is represented by landscape resources and demand that is represented by community needs and community requirements. The discrepancy between supply and demand (not respecting the properties of landscape resources) is the determining factor of formation of the environmental problems. The paper presents evaluation of environmental problems resulting from conflict of interests in the land use and methodology for sustainable land use that is based on the integrative approach to the landscape.