Assessment and perception of rural socio-ecological system development in suburban conditions in Central Europe

The main objective of our study was to propose a methodology for identifying the course of the development of the rural socio-ecological system in suburban Slovakia at the municipality level. Our methodology is based on a comparison of data over two time horizons, both a quantitative evaluation over approximately 25 years (socio-economic settings, spatial well-being and land use) and a complementary sociological evaluation (a questionnaire survey on the perception of land use changes over the last 20 years, of expected change in the next 20 years, and of the ideal state of land use). We applied the method to the village of Báb as a pilot area. The resulting quantitative assessment showed that the development of the village has characteristics of developing residential use, complemented by conventional agriculture. The results of the survey on the perception of land use changes to date differ from the actual quantitative data. In terms of expected changes, residents expect primarily an increase in built-up areas and a decrease in agricultural, natural and semi-natural areas. Their vision of ideal land use is focused on slowing down the development of housing areas and turning attention to housing quality, spatial well-being and restoration of the agricultural character of the settlement. In our work, we also focused on linking people's perceptions and development trends and their possible integration into spatial planning practice Our results confirmed that research on the linkages between the social and ecological subsystems can influence the well-being of local populations by taking into account their preferences or requirements for the landscape patterning, as well as for the development of economic activities, in the spatial planning process. • The SES approach helps to clarify the process of suburbanization. • A socio-ecological approach focused on changes in land use allows us to monitor cumulative phenomena. • Monitoring human spatial well-being is important for spatial planning. • Human perception is important to include in SES frameworks.