DEFORESTATION AROUND THE WORLD - India Environment Portal

Dinaric Karst – An Example of Deforestation
and Desertification of Limestone Terrain
1. Introduction
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Andrej Kranjc
Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts
Slovenia
Dinaric Mountains are one of the main mountain systems of the Balkans. The name was
given by of the imposing Dinara Mountain (1913 m) at the border between Herzegovina
(Bosnia and Herzegovina) and Dalmatia (Croatia). Under the name of Dinaric Alps it
appeared already in the 18 th century (Hacquet 1785). The part of Dinaric Mountains which is
mostly built by carbonate rocks, limestone predominating, is called Dinaric Karst. The name
Karst as well as the international term “karst” derived from the plateau Kras (Carso in
Italian, Karst in German), the north westernmost plateau of the Dinaric Karst ridges (Kranjc,
2011). Dinaric Mountains are a mountain chain approximately 650 km long and up to 150
km large, covering an area of about 60 000 km 2, stretching between 42° and 46° of northern
latitude (Fig. 1).
Fig. 1. Delimitation of the Dinaric Karst after Roglić and Gams (Mihevc & Prelovšek, 2010).