scholarly journals Competitiveness of the Regions in the Czech Republic from the Perspective of Disaster Risk Financing

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 115-131
Author(s):  
Alena Oulehlova ◽  
Ales Kudlak ◽  
Rudolf Urban ◽  
Eva Hoke

Mitigation of the impact of disasters and increasing resilience represent an inseparable part of the competitiveness of regions that cannot be implemented without a necessary resource framework. The paper focuses on the issue of financing individual phases of disaster management at the level of regions in the Czech conditions. The article is based on the assumption that public authorities do not systematically plan funds for dealing with crisis situations in the expenditure part of the budget, thereby not supporting the structural and functional conditions of territorial attractiveness, security and sustainability. The aim of the article is to propose a unique calculation of the minimum fund allocation for individual phases of disaster risk reduction at the regional level. The calculation concept is based on the value of the property owned by the region, the number of crisis situations predicted in the region, the number of crisis situations predicted in the Czech Republic, the administrative territory of the region and the total expenditures of the regional budget. The article presents a specific national approach to the public fund allocation to the individual disaster risk management phases, providing competitive administration and progressive and resilient development of the region. Based on the originally elaborated calculation, a comparative analysis of the expenditure part of 13 regional budgets for the 2013– 2019 period was performed. The premise on the insufficient financing of disaster management was confirmed, although the Crisis Management Act imposes this obligation. The results showed that the most underfunded area was the implementation phase.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Komenda ◽  
Jiří Jarkovský ◽  
Daniel Klimeš ◽  
Petr Panoška ◽  
Ondřej Šanca ◽  
...  

BACKGROUND At the time of the COVID-19 pandemic, the impact of providing access to data plays a crucial role in providing the general public and media with up-to-date information. Open datasets also represent one of the means for evaluation of the pandemic on a global level. OBJECTIVE The primary aim of this paper is to describe the methodical and technical framework for publishing datasets describing basic and advanced epidemiological characteristics related to the COVID-19 epidemic in the Czech Republic, including the use of these datasets in practice. METHODS As a reaction to the epidemic situation, a new portal COVID‑19: Current Situation in the Czech Republic was developed and launched in March 2020 to provide a fully-fledged and trustworthy source of information for the public and media. The portal also contains a section for the publication of (i) public open datasets available for download in CSV and JSON formats and (ii) authorized-access-only section where the authorized persons can (through an online generated token) safely visualize or download regional datasets with aggregated data at the level of the individual municipalities and regions. The data are also provided to the local open data catalogue of the Ministry of Health and to the National Catalogue of Open Data. RESULTS The datasets have been published in various authentication regimes and widely used by general public, scientists, public authorities and decision-makers. The total number of API calls since its launch in March 2020 to 15th December 2020 exceeded 13 million. The datasets have been adopted as an official and guaranteed source for outputs of third parties, including public authorities, non-governmental organizations, scientists and online news portals. CONCLUSIONS Datasets currently published as open data meet the 3-star open data requirements, which makes them machine-readable and facilitates their further usage without restrictions. This is essential for making the data more easily understandable and usable for data consumers. In conjunction with the strategy of the MH in the field of data opening, additional datasets meeting the already implemented standards will be also released, both on COVID-19 related and unrelated topics.


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 175-182
Author(s):  
Andrii Zolkover ◽  
Jurij Renkas

This article is devoted to the development of methods for assessing the integrated level of macroeconomic stability of the country. Systematization of literature sources and approaches to determining the factors influencing macroeconomic stability and methods of its assessment showed that this problem is still unresolved and needs attention, given the epidemiological threats as additional factors destabilizing the world economy. The urgency of solving this scientific problem lies in need of an adequate and timely response to changes in the development of the national economy to prevent them from escalating into crisis phenomena. The study of assessing the integrated level of macroeconomic stability in the country was carried out in the article in the following logical sequence: 1) the formation of the statistical base of the study in terms of three groups of indicators: stimulants, disincentives and nominators; 2) bringing the indicators of the statistical input base of the study to a comparable form; 3) determining the priority of the impact of the components of the indicator in the integrated indicator; 4) assessment of the integrated level of macroeconomic stability, considering both the ranking of input indicators and the strength of their impact on the formation of the desired integrated indicator; 5) conducting a qualitative interpretation of the integrated level of macroeconomic stability. The methodological tools of the study were the following methods: minimax approach to the normalization of the statistical base of the study; sigma-limited parameterization method and Pareto method for determining the priority of the impact of the components of the indicators of the integrated level of macroeconomic stability; Erlang’s formula for estimating the integrated level of macroeconomic stability. The study period was 2006-2019. The countries selected for the study were the following: Poland, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Latvia, Hungary and Slovakia. The article presents the results of the assessment of the integrated indicator, which showed that Lithuania, Latvia, the Czech Republic and Poland achieved macroeconomic stability on average from 2014 at 84%, Slovakia – 65%, while Hungary had relative stability from 2010 to 2016, at the level of 76-82%, but in 2017-2018 there is a destabilization of economic development to 45%. The results of the study can be useful for public authorities in determining macroeconomic stability as an element of national economic management, the use of which will protect against financial and economic crises by taking a set of preventive measures. Keywords: Pareto diagram, macroeconomic stability, minimax approach, ranking, sigma-limited parameterization, Erlang’s formula.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (10) ◽  
pp. 5355
Author(s):  
Vilém Pechanec ◽  
Ondřej Cudlín ◽  
Miloš Zapletal ◽  
Jan Purkyt ◽  
Lenka Štěrbová ◽  
...  

Global and regional biodiversity loss is caused by several drivers including urban development, land use intensification, overexploitation of natural resources, environmental pollution, and climate change. The main aim of our study was to adapt the GLOBIO3 model to the conditions of the Czech Republic (CR) to assess loss of naturalness and biodiversity vulnerability at the habitat level on a detailed scale across the entire CR. An additional aim was to assess the main drivers affecting the biodiversity of habitat types. The GLOBIO3 model was adapted to CZ-GLOBIO by adapting global to local scales and using habitat quality and naturalness data instead of species occurrence data. The total mean species abundance (MSA) index of habitat quality, calculated from the spatial overlay of the four MSA indicators by our new equation, reached the value 0.62. The total value of MSA for natural and near-natural habitats was found to be affected mainly by infrastructure development and fragmentation. Simultaneously, intensity of land use change and atmospheric nitrogen deposition contributed primarily to the low total value of MSA for distant natural habitats. The CZ-GLOBIO model can be an important tool in political decision making to reduce the impact of the main drivers on habitat biodiversity in the CR.


2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 222
Author(s):  
Miroslava Navrátilová ◽  
Markéta Beranová ◽  
Lucie Severová ◽  
Karel Šrédl ◽  
Roman Svoboda ◽  
...  

The aim of the presented article is to evaluate the impact of climate change on the sugar content of grapes in the Czech Republic during the period 2000–2019 through selected indicators on the basis of available secondary sources. Attention is focused on the developments in both the main wine-growing regions of Moravia and Bohemia. In the field of viticulture and wine-growing, the sugar content of grapes, as a basic parameter for the classification of wines, plays an important role. In the Czech Republic, the average sugar content of grapes has had a constantly growing trend. This trend is evident both in the wine-growing region of Bohemia and in the wine-growing region of Moravia. The impact of climate change, especially the gradual increase of average temperatures in the growing season, cannot be overlooked. It greatly affects, among other things, the sugar content of grapes. Calculations according to the Huglin Index and the Winkler Index were used to determine the relationship between climate and sugar content. These indexes summarize the course of temperatures during the entire vegetation period into a single numerical value. The results show that both indexes describe the effect of air temperature on sugar content in both wine regions of the Czech Republic in a statistically significant way. The Huglin Index shows a higher correlation rate. The Winkler Index proved to be less suitable for both areas. Alternatively, the Winkler Index calculated for a shorter growing season was tested, which showed a higher degree of correlation with sugar content, approaching the significance of the Huglin Index.


Author(s):  
Beata Gavurova ◽  
Miriama Tarhanicova

Background: Alcohol is a risk factor with serious consequences for society and individuals. This study aims to present methods and approaches that might be used to estimate the costs related to excessive alcohol consumption. It emphasizes the need for general methods and approaches that are easily applicable, because the level of digitalization and data availability vary across regions. The lack of data makes many methods inapplicable and useless. The ease of applicability will help to make cost-of-illness studies and their results comparable globally. Methods: This study is based on data from the Czech Republic in 2017. Drinking alcohol results in costs of healthcare, social care, law enforcement, and administrative costs of public authorities. To quantify the cost of drinking in the Czech Republic, the top-down approach, bottom-up approach, human capital approach and attributable fractions were used. Results: In 2017, the cost related to alcohol was estimated at 0.66% of the national GDP. Lost productivity represented 54.45% of total cost related to alcohol. All cost related to alcohol is considered to be avoidable. Conclusions: The methods and approaches applied to estimate the cost of disease or any other health issue should be generalized regarding the availability of data and specifics of provided services to people who are addicted or have any kind of disability.


2013 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-44
Author(s):  
Roman David

Memories of wrongdoings are often viewed as an obstacle to reconciliation in divided societies. Is it due to the past or the present politics of the past? To examine the dilemma of essentialism versus presentism, this article investigates the impact of transitional justice on memories of wrongdoing. It theorizes that using different transitional justice strategies to deal with the same wrongdoing shapes memories in different ways. The theory is tested via vignette-based surveys in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland, which adopted distinct lustration laws. The results show that wrongdoing is viewed through lustration laws, reflecting present power constellations, not history.


2017 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 293-301 ◽  
Author(s):  
VÁCLAV ZÁMEČNÍK ◽  
VOJTĚCH KUBELKA ◽  
MIROSLAV ŠÁLEK

SummaryOnly a few studies have assessed the predation risk on artificially marked nests, or have examined ways of marking nests to avoid destruction by machinery. Until now, however, neither type of study has directly addressed this apparent trade-off experimentally. The impact of marking the nests of Northern Lapwing Vanellus vanellus with thin 2 m-long conspicuous bamboo poles with the top end highlighted with reflective red or orange spray has been tested for three years in two breeding areas of waders in the Czech Republic. A total of 52 pairs of nests on agricultural land, with each pair consisting of one marked nest and one unmarked reference counterpart nest, were monitored for 2004 nest-days until hatching, agricultural operations or failure. The results proved that marking itself does not result in increased nest predation. The nests found in the early incubation stage were under higher threat of depredation, irrespective of the presence of marking. Our results show that it is possible to find a finely-tuned trade-off in nest marking of ground-nesting birds between risk of damage by agricultural machinery and risk of increased nest predation. Our positive experience with Northern Lapwing, and episodically with three other wader species in the Czech Republic, suggests that this direct nest protection could be used effectively for a wider variety of ground-nesting birds.


2015 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-88
Author(s):  
Petra Baji ◽  
Márta Péntek ◽  
Imre Boncz ◽  
Valentin Brodszky ◽  
Olga Loblova ◽  
...  

In the past few years, several papers have been published in the international literature on the impact of the economic crisis on health and health care. However, there is limited knowledge on this topic regarding the Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries. The main aims of this study are to examine the effect of the financial crisis on health care spending in four CEE countries (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia) in comparison with the OECD countries. In this paper we also revised the literature for economic crisis related impact on health and health care system in these countries. OECD data released in 2012 were used to examine the differences in growth rates before and after the financial crisis. We examined the ratio of the average yearly growth rates of health expenditure expressed in USD (PPP) between 2008–2010 and 2000–2008. The classification of the OECD countries regarding “development” and “relative growth” resulted in four clusters. A large diversity of “relative growth” was observed across the countries in austerity conditions, however the changes significantly correlate with the average drop of GDP from 2008 to 2010. To conclude, it is difficult to capture visible evidence regarding the impact of the recession on the health and health care systems in the CEE countries due to the absence of the necessary data. For the same reason, governments in this region might have a limited capability to minimize the possible negative effects of the recession on health and health care systems.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document