Projects
"The role of charcoal mounds in terms of cultural heritage and landscape protection"
Financed by TA ČR (Technology Agency of the Czech Republic) programme ÉTA
2019-2021
The aim of the project was to verify whether or not different types of historical charcoal production had a positive influence on the landscape in which they were located and whether this influence is deterministically demonstrable in parameters of the physical, chemical and biological properties of the soil at the landscape level. The results included an exhibition and a short film. The principal investigator was Jakub Houška, co-investigators were Václav Tejnecký, Luděk Šefrna, Miroslav Dejmal and Péter Szabó.
"Agroforestry – potential for regional development and sustainable rural landscape"
Financed by TA ČR (Technology Agency of the Czech Republic) programme ÉTA
2018-2020
The aim of the project was to evaluate the benefits and constraints of using agroforestry systems in the Czech Republic with a focus on the socio-economic, legal and environmental contexts. The project evaluated the planting of trees on arable land in areas affected by soil erosion and drought, and animal husbandry combined with tree components. Based on a detailed literary review, historical data, socio-ethnological surveys, production and economic data gathered from farmers, we evaluated the benefits of agroforestry systems for agricultural land. Furthermore, legislative constraints and opportunities for tree growing on agricultural land were analyzed. The final outputs included scientific publications and, in particular, documents (methodologies) for the application and implementation of agroforestry systems in the Czech Republic. The principal investigator was Bohdan Lojka, co-investigators were Péter Szabó, Jan Weger, Antonín Martiník, Jana Krčmářová and Jaroslav Šebek.
"Windstorms in the Czech Lands in the past 500 years"
Financed by GA ČR (Grant Agency of the Czech Republic) GA15-11805S
2015-2017
Windstorms are among the most serious weather extremes that lead to material damage and loss of human life. A combination of windstorm information from various documentary historical climatological sources for the pre-instrumental period, and modern strong wind events extracted from wind speed measurements and calculations of storminess based on sea-level-pressure fields in the instrumental period were used in this project to compile a 500-year chronology of windstorms and their impacts in the Czech Lands. This chronology was employed to derive important trends in windstorms and to study their spatio-temporal variability in frequency, magnitude, seasonality, synoptic causes, climatic influences and impacts. We paid particular attention to the analysis of the effects of windstorms on the past and present development of forests in Moravia and Silesia. The principal investigator was Rudolf Brázdil, co-investigators were Péter Szabó and Radim Tolasz.
"Long-term woodland dynamics in Central Europe: from estimations to a realistic model"
Financed by the European Research Council (ERC), Starting Grant 278065
2012-2016
Using an extensive range of primary sources from history, historical geography, palaeoecology, archaeology and ecology, this interdisciplinary project aimed to reconstruct the long-term (Neolithic to present) patterns of woodland cover, structure, composition and management in a larger study region (Moravia, the Czech Republic, ca. 27,000 km2) with the highest spatio-temporal resolution possible. Causes for the patterns observed were analyzed in terms of qualitative and quantitative factors, both natural and human-driven, and the patterns in the tree layer were related to patterns in the herb layer, which constitutes the most important part of plant biodiversity in Europe. This project aimed to introduce woodland management as an equal driving factor into long-term woodland dynamics, thus fostering a paradigm shift in ecology towards construing humans as an internal, constitutive element of ecosystems. The project was based at the Dept. of Vegetation Ecology of the Institute of Botany of the Czech Academy of Sciences, the principal investigator was Péter Szabó.
“Lowland woodland in the perspective of historical development”
Financed by GA AV (Grant Agency of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic) IAA600050812
2008–2012
Based at the Dept. of Vegetation Ecology of the Institute of Botany of the Czech Academy of Sciences, this project (under the leadership of Radim Hédl) investigated lowland woodlands in the Czech Republic. Botanists, palynologists, dendrochronologists, a GIS specialist and a historical ecologist worked together in order to find out more about the temporal continuity and past management of Czech woods and about the influence of these factors on current vegetation. We also co-operate with nature conservation authorities to see if some of our results can be used in woodland management.
“Medieval Hungarian economic history in light of archaeology and material culture”
Financed by OTKA (Hungarian Scientific Research Fund) TS049866
2005–2007
Based at the Archaeological Institute of Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, this project brought together all the existing knowledge about medieval Hungarian economic history (interpreted very broadly). The principal investigator was the late prof. András Kubinyi. Eleven researchers participated in the project directly.
We organised two workshops (one for participating researchers and one for invited specialists) and a major, two-day conference that summarised the results of our work. We published a BA course-book for medieval economic history, and, based on the final conference, a large volume with twenty-four authors that includes simply everything that is presently known about the economy and material culture of medieval Hungary.
Kubinyi, András, József Laszlovszky and Péter Szabó, ed. Gazdaság és gazdálkodás a középkori Magyarországon: gazdaságtörténet, anyagi kultúra régészet (Economy in medieval Hungary: economic history, material culture, archaeology). Budapest: Martin Opitz Kiadó, 2008.
Recently an English language version of the book (with substantial new parts) was published by Brill.
“Trends in research and teaching of historical ecology in Central Europe.”
Financed by the Austrain Science and Research Liaison Office, Brno
2007
This project was jointly organised by the Dept. of Vegetation Ecology of the Institute of Botany of the Czech Academy of Sciences, the Dept. of Medieval Studies at the Central European University, and the Center for Environmental History of the University of Klagenfurt. Our aim was to bring together colleagues interested in human-nature interactions in the past from three neighbouring countries: Austria, the Czech Republic and Hungary. We organised a workshop in Budapest, whose proceedings were published in this book:Szabó, Péter and Radim Hédl, ed. Human Nature: Studies in Historical Ecology and Environmental History. Brno: Institute of Botany of the ASCR, 2008.
(the book is still available, if you'd like a copy, write to szabo_at_policy.hu)
