Second order effects of landscape management on rural economies in Bulgaria and Turkey

Dimitre Nikolov, Teodor Radev, Petar Borisov, Handan Giray, Tufan Bal, M. Çagla Ormeci Kart

Abstract: This research focuses on building a specific framework and to measure the contribution of landscape to the development of rural economy. The main issues are to be determined how landscape contributes to the competitiveness of rural economy and special focus on the second order effects. Analysis is made in key sectors of agriculture at the rural economy of Pazarjik region in Bulgaria and Guneykent/Isparta region in Turkey. Both empirical results in Bulgaria and Turkey indicate that there is demand of the following landscape services: food, raw materials, fresh water, climate and air quality, spiritual experience and sense of place. Based on cascade approach it was defined the influence of landscape on rural competitiveness. The objectives of this paper are, in order to explain complexity of multiple processes connecting landscape elements, actors, framework conditions and benefits to present the application of the Analytic Network Process (ANP) method to the agricultural landscape topic in two case study areas in neighbor and similar countries, one is the EU member and another is a candidate for the EU to discuss evidences and results for the improvement of the method.

Keywords: landscape; rural economy; second order effect

Date published: 2017-10-04