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Landscape changes identified from multitemporal land cover databases allow the detection of the changes of individual landscape elements with high spatio-temporal precision. The similarity of the causal relations as well the characteristic states of landscape before and after change allowed us to group individual land cover changes into the landscape change types representing more complex processes in the landscape. In the paper, 13 landscape change types were proposed for the analysis of major developmental trends in the study area during the last 50 years. The described landscape change types derived from land cover databases of four time horizons, allowed us to identify and understand some of the spatial and temporal trends of landscape development related to main social and economic changes, which happened during the second half of the 20th century. Results show that during the last 50 years, the 63.9% of the study area changed. The most significant processes forming the contemporary landscape structure were urbanization, industrialization, intensification and extensification of agriculture and loss of agricultural land. The influence of these processes on the landscape development was changing during the analysed time periods.
