CONFERENCEChanges in Settlement and Landscape in Amata Village After 2000
Ineta Grine
University of Latvia, Faculty of Geography and Earth Sciences
Ivars Strautnieks
University of Latvia, Faculty of Geography and Earth Sciences
DOI: 10.22364/fg.16.8
Keywords: Settlement, landscape changes, terrain transformation, Amatciems
Abstract
It is known historically, that a territorial settlement with its related buildings and type of landuse is the main factors that determine the development and transformation of the landscape. In comparison to the farmstead, villages are built with more density, and for this reason their history of formation and concept affects the development of either a landscape with balanced nature and anthropogenic components or a landscape with dominating proportion of anthropogenic and techogenic components. The mutual interaction of the settlement and the landscape is also influenced by the functionality of the village, as well as its type of management and changes of the administrative territorial borders, which results in villages merging into each other as well as with nearby towns. After year 2000, Latvia observed the formation of new villages and in particular cases these villages partially merged with historical formations in Riga’s suburbs. After year 2000 Amatciems (Amatas county) started to develop, independently for several years, and alongside with the nearby historical Amatas village. The planning documents demonstrate that borders of Amatas village are set by their historical development as well as neighbouring Amatciems. The aim of the research is to describe the transformation of countryside landscape and settlement of Amatas village since year 2000.