Landscape Transformations in the Rural Areas of the East Upper Thracian Plain (Southeast Bulgaria)

There are different approaches to evaluate the human impact over landscapes. One of them is the geochemical research which focuses on finding and differentiation of the pollutants in the contemporary landscapes. Both slightly transformed landscapes (background landscapes) and heavily transformed landscapes are surveyed. Among the prioritized pollutants are the heavy metals (Pb, Cu, Zn, Mn, Ni, Co, Cr, Cd). Detecting and monitoring of the concentration of some chemical elements and their compounds in the landscape components are parts of the environmental monitoring and protection. The main research goals are based on the idea of applying landscape-geochemical methods in the terms of relatively short-term and representative survey of the heavy metals' concentration in the region. A set of soil samples is collected from different locations considering the stage of human impact in order to provide a meaningful geochemical ` picture' of the researched area. The investigated territory is the catchment of Sazliyka River (a left tributary of Evros River (Maritsa)), which mostly incorporates a big portion of the East Upper Thracian Plain. Higher density of settlement network is typical here as well as high rural population density rate. The catchment includes landscapes on the transition between lowland and mountainous topography in the conditions of intensive agriculture, industry, and transport infrastructure. One of the biggest industrial clusters in Bulgaria is located in the territory. Almost the entire catchment includes landscapes significantly transformed by human activities.