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"Die Umweltsituation in der Ukraine ist schlecht. Die energie- und rohstoffintensive Industrie hat im Osten des Landes das ökologische Gleichgewicht zerstört. Dort sind die Schadstoffkonzentration in der Atmosphäre hoch und die Qualität der Gewässer schlecht. Im gesamten Land sind die Ackerböden degradiert, die Artenvielfalt ist stark zurückgegangen. Doch obwohl die ökologische Krise auch zur demographischen Krise der Ukraine beiträgt, ist das Umweltbewusstsein weiter gering. Die dringend erforderliche ökologische Modernisierung ist bislang ausgeblieben." (Autorenreferat)

The environmental situation in Ukraine is bad. Energy & raw material intensive industry has destroyed the ecological balance in the country's east. There, the concentrations of contaminants in the atmosphere are high & the quality of the water poor. Throughout the entire country, farmlands have been degraded, & biodiversity has declined. Nonetheless, although the ecological crisis has also contributed to Ukraine's demographic crisis, environmental consciousness remains marginal. The urgently needed ecological modernization has yet to take place. Adapted from the source document.

On April 26, 1986 the most serious accident in the history of the peaceful use of nuclear energy took place in the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the immediate vicinity of the town of Pripet. Especially the surrounding areas that now belong to the republics of Byelorussia, Ukraine and Russia were affected. Within a radius of 30 to 50 km around the power plant human life, plants and animals, soils and water were most severely affected by radioactivity. The population had to be evacuated from this area rapidly. Economic activities had to be reduced in a much larger area. Like many other scientists and technicians, geographers also participated in the research on the consequences and on damage reduction. In spite of the contamination, vegetation became an "ally" of man, surprisingly fast. Pioneer plants supported the attempts to minimize the spread of radioactively contaminated substances by their reoccupation of former agricultural land. Observing this development, trees were planted purposively, to stabilize the radio-ecological situation. Extensive geomorphological, geochemical and geoecological research allowed to determine areas of further output and accumulation of radionuclides and their transportation routes. The economy in the contaminated areas was affected to different degrees. Seriously affected were agriculture and forestry in the Ukrainian Polesye. There is virtually no more production in the industrial towns of Pripet, Poleskoe, Chernobyl and Narodichi. Other areas and sites have changes in their production and their functions. The management has to mind constantly the danger of a further spreading of radionuclides and of the contamination of products. The most serious result of radioactive contamination is the worsening of the ecological conditions of life of the population. Additional dangers, on which little research has been done, result from the combination of "normal" pollution and the nuclear accident. The life styles of millions of people were deformed, thousands became ill and the constant expectation of additional diseases led to an enormous psychiological stress. The relief provided by the state is not insignificant, but because of the recession it encounters diverse limitations. The regeneration of the conditions of life is a great task for spatial research and regional planning. Especially the alleged mutual interdependencies between physical and social environmental conditions and developmental measures have to be examined, in spite of the urgent need for action. It is necessary to coordinate the projects of all the affected republics: Ukraine, Byelorussia and Russia.

1959 von R. PREBISCH im Rahmen globaler Wirtschaftsraumerörterungen – Industrieländer hier, "Entwicklungsländer" dort – erstmals in der Geographie gebraucht, wurden die Begriffe ,Peripherie' und ,periphere Räume' vom Ende der 1960er Jahre an vor allem bei der Charakterisierung der wirtschaftsräumlichen Verhältnisse eines Landes benutzt. Sie stehen in abstrahierender Ansprache den Begriffen ,Zentrum' und ,Ballungsraum' gegenüber und damit für ländliche und andere von der Landesentwicklung vernachlässigte ,Passiv'-Räume. In jüngerer Zeit tauchen diese Begriffe häufig in Arbeiten zur Wirtschaftstransformation in den Ländern des östlichen Europa auf. Obwohl ihr Gebrauch dabei generell nicht zu Verständnisschwierigkeiten führt, empfiehlt es sich, bei Untersuchungen der Verhältnisse in den Nachfolgestaaten der ehemaligen Sowjetunion die Besonderheit zu beachten, dass in sowjetischer Zeit auch Zentren und Ballungsgebiete Merkmale der Peripherie zwangsläufig angenommen haben. Durch diverse ideologisch bestimmte politische, ökonomische und administrative Maßnahmen entstanden Räume, die hier als ,relativ peripher' bezeichnet werden und deren Charaktreistika auch die gegenwärtigen Prozesse beeinflussen. In der Ukraine, die im vorliegenden Artikel als Beispiel dient, kam es unter anderem dazu, dass (1) selbst in Städten wie Kiew, Dnipropetrowsk oder Lwiw (Lemberg) infrastrukturelle und institutionelle Eigenentwicklungen nur eingeschränkt möglich ware, dass (2) Industriegebiete wie das Donbass oder die Erdölfördergebiete in den Vorkarpaten und im Dnjeper-Tiefland technologisch und strukturell zurückbleiben mussten, dass (3) Industriezentren und -gebiete wegen bewusster unvollendeter Produktionszyklen in ihrer Bedeutung beschnitten wurden. Sie alle gerieten in die relative Peripherie und sind deshalb heute eine Ursache für die wirt schaftliche Krise und die generellen Schwierigkeiten im Transformationsprozess in der Ukraine. Nur mit Hilfe neuartiger Initiativen und allmählicher Modernisierung von Strukturen, Verfahren und Beziehungen (z.B. in Euroregionen) können die entstandenen Nachteile – Monostrukturen, Unterentwicklung, fehlende industrielle Endfertigung, geringe Anbindung – sowohl der relativen wie der wirklichen peripheren Räume überwunden bzw. bis zu einem bestimmten Grad überwunden werden.

A significant number of economic, social and environmental problems have accumulated in all areas of Ukraine and pose a serious obstacle to sustainable development. Those problems are particularly acute in the rural areas. The local rural communities in Ukraine have the lowest indicators of economic development, significant social problems, including particularly acute demographic and employment problems, and an unfavorable ecological situation caused by poor municipal infrastructure, land degradation, etc. The vast majority of the rural communities in Ukraine have no plans for their own territories' development. In such circumstances, the introduction of landscape planning tools is an effective means of identifying the existing development problems and environmental management issues, as well as of defining the best ways for the integrated development of the local rural communities. A number of reasons prevents introduction of such planning in Ukraine, including the flaws in the legislation, lack of interest among managers of rural communities and low activity of local people on the issues which determine the future of their settlements. However, there are examples of successful implementation of landscape planning tools in designing of the plans of rural communities' development. The authors were a part of the team which, for the first time in Ukraine, undertook this research in the Stepanetsky rural council in Cherkassy region. The results of the research have been welcomed by the management, the residence and the members of the village council and they are being practically implemented. The foregoing demonstrates the relevance and feasibility of landscape planning tools implementation in Ukraine directed at addressing and resolving the problems of the rural communities.

The marked deterioration of the state of the environment in the Uk raine in the course of the last twenty years and its increasingly negative affects on broad areas of the private and social life has lead to a close scientific connection between geography and ecology. In this context and at the same time as concrete, region-related examinations, theoretic studies have also been carried out. This lead to a differentiation and definition of a whole range of terms and research aspects, which will be elaborated on in the introductory phase. As a term with a particular importance for the characterisation of the geographic-ecological situation, the ecological safety will be given special, closer attention. The background for the widespread and deeply-rooted reduction in the ecological safety is formed by the large extent of population density, the high level of agricultural development, the intensive extraction of natural resources and rocks, the widespread employment of obsolete technology with high energy consumption and huge quantities of exhaust substances and the catastrophe from Chernobyl. The ecological situation is extremely critical -given conventional pollution- in the industrial areas of Krivoi Rog-Dnepropet rovsk, Donetsk, Lugansk-Lysytshansk and Cis-Carpathian, as well as in the agglomerations and/or urban centres of Kiev, Lvov (Lemberg), Kharkov, Zaporozhye, Odessa, Mariupol and Mikolayiv. In order to ensure improvements, it is necessary for the economy to be reformed, for fundamental technological changes to be made and for the social and intellectual recovery to be implemented. This design of life in the Ukrainian society to comply with ecological principles occurs at the same time and in the same contents as the international efforts for the long-term development of national economies.