Geographia Polonica (2003) vol. 76, iss. 2
Gully evolution in the Myjava Hill land in the second half of the last millenium in the context of the Central European area
Geographia Polonica (2003) vol. 76, iss. 2, pp. 89-108 | 
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Abstract
The author's investigations in the territory of the Myjava Hill Land, Slovakia revealed two periods of gullying in the course of the second half of the last millennium, the first dated to some time between the second half of the 16th century and the 1730s and the second approximately between the 1780s and the middle of the 19th century. Though the extensive forest clearance and expansion of farmland provided conditions favouring gullying, the triggering mechanism of the disastrous gully erosion were extreme rainfall and snowmelt events within the Little Ice Age (LIA). The comparison of gully formation phases identified in the study area with stages of gullying known from some other central-European countries suggests that gullying was not fully simultaneous across the region. The older phase identified in the Myjava Hill Land, does not have an equivalent in Germany, Poland, or Hungary and to a considerable degree in Czechia either.
Keywords: gully evolution, periods of gullying, land use changes, climatic changes, Slovakia
, Department of Physical Geography and Geoecology, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Comenius University in Bratislava, Mlynskä dolina, 842 15 Bratislava 4, Slovak Republic