My place yesterday and today RUGVICA

We are students of the GLOBE group from the Rugvica Elementary School in Croatia and last year we made an analysis of the land cover in our area using satellite images to see the changes in our area and how they affect us. 

The Municipality of Rugvica is one of the municipalities of Zagreb County, established in 1993, by separating from the Municipality of Dugo Selo. It consists of 23 settlements spread over an area of 93.73 km2. With its location, this municipality borders Zagreb in the north, Dugo Selo in the east, Ivanić Grad in the south, and the western border is the Sava River, which separates it from the municipality of Orle (Map 2). The municipality was named after the village of Rugvica, which is located in the central part of the municipality. The very location of this village has conditioned it to be an educational, political and economic center. There is the building of the Rugvica Primary School, the School Sports Hall and the building of the local government of the Municipality of Rugvica located next to the Fire Station (Map 1). There is also the largest largest economic zone.

This area is on average at 300 m above sea level and has always enabled agriculture, and the fertile soils along the Sava River have enabled families to produce food for their own needs for centuries. At the end of the 20th century, this once extremely agricultural area began to take on new contours, and the events during the Homeland War and later influenced the fact that this area significantly changed its demographic and economic characteristics. ( General about the municipality -  Općina Rugvica - Općenito o općini )

In recent times, the area of the municipality of Rugvica has been developing rapidly thanks to the proximity of the capital city of Zagreb and the opening of the exit from the former highway.

The most famous example of the transformation of space, that is, the conversion from agricultural to construction / commercial land is the space where the famous IKEA retail chain is located today in the Rugvica Shopping Zone, where the space was repurposed with the spatial plan, which will be seen in the satellite images below.

The legend showing the classification of the shrouds on the maps above has helped us interpret the maps. To compare areas, we used the tool:  Imagery Compare - Tool for Satellite Imagery Comparison of EarthMap.orgy.  

The biggest changes were observed in the increase in built spaces in 2023 compared to 2021. Also, a difference can be seen in the course of the Sava River, a slight increase in flow, which may be a consequence of the higher water level in 2023.

After observing satellite images and changes, we started analyzing them in more detail and tried to determine at least two places where we noticed the biggest change.

We also wanted to investigate the changes in the water surfaces of our municipality compared to October 2017 and October 2023 (Map 3). We have noticed changes in the spatial arrangement, that is, the scope. In 2023, the area of Lake Abyssinia is smaller compared to the same period in 2017, which may correspond to higher water levels, precipitation in the area.

Next, we investigated changes in water surfaces in lakes Trstenik 1, 2 and 3 (Map 3). We compared the lakes in October 2018 and 2023. We noticed changes, especially in the surface of Lake Trstenik 3, which is shown on the map above. We researched the available literature because we were interested in where this large change in the surface area came from, which is certainly not the result of just a larger amount of precipitation. We found the following data by studying the available literature: Lakes Trstenik I, II, III and Abyssinia are lakes that were formed in the 70s as a result of gravel extraction for the construction of the Zagreb – Lipovac highway.

 Description of the lake

Lake Trstenik III was created as a result of the continuation of gravel extraction from Trstenik I and II. It is located behind Lake Trstenik II in Struga Nartska, about 12 kilometers from the center of Dugo Selo and some 7 kilometers from the highway exit in Rugvica. It is irregular in shape and its area is about 2 ha, and the average depth is 6 meters. The lake is still in operation, which means that gravel is still being extracted from it

Lake Trstenik III was put back into exploitation until 3 years ago, and now gravel is intensively extracted from the west side, and its area has increased by 50% and the depth in that part is much greater (  Jezero Trstenik III | Športsko ribolovno društvo "Dugo Selo-Rugvica" (wordpress.com)  ). With this article, we concluded our research and analysis on the increase in the surface area of Lake Trstenik 3, which we observed by observing the available satellite images of the cover.

It should also be noted that in the area of the municipality of Rugvica, the flow of the Sava River is protected under the NATURA 2000 protection network, which can be seen in the attached photo and the legend next to it (Figure 2). Also, the Public Institution Green Ring of Zagreb County has adopted a Management Plan for this area ( PU 7013 Sava kod Hruscice i Rakitje.pdf (gov.hr) ) where we, as a school (our mentors), were also stakeholders and participated in a stakeholder workshop at the local level in order to get to know the management plan for this area better.

Given that the area of the municipality is increasingly transforming from agricultural to industrial, and we were especially interested in the area near our school, we decided to explore this space as well (Map 4). By analyzing the maps from 2018 and 2023, the transformation of the area from agricultural to construction or industrial use is clearly visible, and we believe that this is not a good transformation, given that there is now a larger area under the building, which was not the case before, and this does not contribute to the preservation of the ecosystem of our place.

CONCLUSION

The Municipality of Rugvica has recently been transformed and has become one of the most promising municipalities in the Republic of Croatia. In accordance with this, there is a transformation of the space, which is regularly accompanied by a change in the spatial plan. At the same time, our municipality is among the transparent municipalities in Croatia and regularly publishes changes in the spatial plan on its website ( Općina Rugvica - Prostorni plan ). It should certainly be noted that we have noticed changes from agricultural use to commercial/construction land and this change is shown on the interactive map above (KFK under construction). Furthermore, by inspecting the documents of the spatial plan, we read that the mentioned changes in the spatial plan, especially regarding the construction of the industrial zone, will not have a negative impact on the environment( Ocjena-i-strateška-procjena-utjecaja-na-okoliš.pdf (rugvica.hr) ). There are no significant areas under forest in the municipality, especially within populated areas, so the construction will certainly not have an impact on the reduction of areas under forest.

With the help of satellite images that we used and with the help of literature and observation of the environment, we saw the changes in our area that we have shown and explained through this story. Attention should certainly be drawn to changes in the environment and the environment, and in addition to the accompanying changes, environmental protection and the prevention of excessive construction to the detriment of the environment should also be taken into account.