Non-forest woody vegetation is an important landscape feature of agricultural/rural landscape. Ph.D. thesis deals with evaluation of current state of non-forest woody vegetation, historical development and changes in configuration and composition in landscape. Non-forest woody vegetation was investigated in two physical-geographical different model areas (Kutnohorsko Region and White Carpathians). The thesis is based on own data collected in the field and digitized on historical aerial photos and current ortho-photos. After that, data were analyzed in relation to natural conditions and changes of landscape structure since 50s of 20th century until present. Comparing both model areas, assumed differences in character of non-forest woody vegetation, species composition, dominated type as well as relation to habitats/locations were confirmed. However, rapid changes of landscape structure in the last 60 years were caused by the same driving forces such as re-allotment, mechanization and intensification of agriculture. After 1989, processes such extensification of agriculture and land abandonment played the main role in landscape, especially in mountain regions. The second aim of the Ph.D. thesis was to identify changes in spatial configuration of non- forest woody vegetation in two...

In the current post-industrial society, with increasing requirement of sustainability, greenery significantly participates in the spatial, operational and functional organization of the urban environment. The first part of the thesis introduces relationship between formation and structure of greenery in an urban environment from the historical point of view. Elements of greenery in an urban environment and on its margins filled a variety of functions: from productional and aesthetical to the recreational and ecological. Green areas have also gradually become an important public space. In the current urban environment, areas of vegetation arise mainly in the form of recultivation of post-industrial areas, adjusted smaller parks, greenery of business and entertainment centers, or greenery of residential units. The thesis is focusing on the last mentioned type, which should be in the closest coexistence with residential environment and on the possibilities of creating eco-residential units, which can become a substitute /or at least one of the possible options/ to mono-functional residential zones emerging on the outskirts of our cities and in the open countryside and act against the ongoing suburbanization and its negative effects. The text of doctoral thesis is trying to find qualitative aspects of greenery which supports the creation of living, attractive and sustainable public spaces. Comparison and evaluation of selected examples from abroad /Austria, Germany, Holland/ and also from the Czech Republic brings us the definition of the necessary and optimum qualitative properties of greenery in public, but also semi-public spaces of residential complexes. These examples of good practice may be used - as a whole or in parts – as inspiration for the development of residential projects in the Czech Republic, either in preferred brownfields areas or in carefully selected areas of new development. The final chapter emphasizes the inseparability of the creation of public spaces and greenery in residential areas from the sustainable development of the area in terms of a penetrable and compact city.