Publisher © Czech Geological Survey, ISSN: 2336-5757 (online), 0514-8057 (print)
Geodiversity – a neglected aspect of nature and landscape protection
Abstract
The geodiversity can be defined as the morphological and substrate diversity of a given region, however the Australian Natural History Charter (1997) includes there the climatical and hydrological aspects together with valuable paleontological sites. The geodiversity is not something given and "eternaly" stable, but consists of many dynamic processes such as weathering, accumulation and erosion. The geodiversity is - contrary to abundant biodiversity - a seldom used term. The natural sites have until recently been viewed from the aspect of nature protection as basically biological phenomena and the protection of geological background was more or less perceived as almost automatical. Deeper analysis of the problem and historical comprehension indicate that geodiversity represents a special, independent (but interconnected) category of nature and landscape protection which operates at different temporal and spatial scales than biodiversity.
