Dr. István Valánszki - MATE Research
Overview
Dr. István Valánszki, PhD is a landscape architect, associate professor, head of department at the Hungarian University of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Department of Landscape Protection and Reclamation. He is also director of the BSc in Landscape management and Garden Construction Engineering program. His research mainly focuses on PPGIS, cultural ecosystem services, and landscape evaluation. He also has international research and work experience (e.g. University of Copenhagen, University of Massachusetts, James Hutton Institute, Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, University of Technology, Vienna). In addition to national awards, in 2017 he received the “Outstanding Doctoral Student 2017” award of the ECLAS (European Council of Landscape Architecture Schools).
Research keywords:
Publications
Cultural ecosystem services
Yousef, R., & Valánszki, I. (2025). Beyond greens: Urban development and green space availability in residential areas of Damascus. City and Environment Interactions, 100235. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cacint.2025.100235
Nádasy, L. Z., Valánszki, I., & Sárospataki, M. (2023). Space Compositional Aspects Regarding the Importance of Trees in the Urban Landscape. Plants, 12(13), 2581. https://doi.org/10.3390/plants12132581
Participatory mapping (PPGIS)
Valanszki, I., Ladanyi, M., Jombach, S., Kristensen, L. S., & Filep-Kovacs, K. (2025). Personal and spatial contexts of CES perception–discovering relationship between place and people in central-eastern-European peri-urban areas. Cities, 161, 105926. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2025.105926
Valánszki, I., Kristensen, L. S., Jombach, S., Ladányi, M., Filepné Kovács, K., & Fekete, A. (2022). Assessing Relations between Cultural Ecosystem Services, Physical Landscape Features and Accessibility in Central-Eastern Europe: A PPGIS Empirical Study from Hungary. Sustainability, 14(2), 754. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14020754
Valánszki, I., Nádasy, L. Z., Erdei, T. K., Borkó, A. É., Iváncsics, V., & Földi, Z. (2025). Mapping Meaning: Perceptions of Green Infrastructure and Cultural Ecosystem Services in the Rapidly Urbanizing Town of Vác, Hungary. Land, 14(8), 1669. https://doi.org/10.3390/land14081669
Green infrastructure
Kovács, Krisztina Filepné, et al. "Spatial Trends of Grassland Changes Based on Hungarian Local Studies After 1990 with a Macro-Regional Perspective." European Countryside, vol. 14, no. 2, Mendel University in Brno, 2022, pp. 397-419. https://doi.org/10.2478/euco-2022-0020
Valánszki, I., Fóris, E. D., & Kovács, K. F. (2018). Parallel development of green infrastructure and sustainable tourism–case studies from Hungary. Polish Journal of Natural Sciences, 33(4), 625-647. PDF
Du, C., Ge, S., Song, P., Jombach, S., Fekete, A., & Valánszki, I. (2025). Optimizing Urban Green Spaces for Vegetation-Based Carbon Sequestration: The Role of Landscape Spatial Structure in Zhengzhou Parks, China. Forests, 16(4), 679. https://doi.org/10.3390/f16040679
Landscape evaluation
Cegielska, K., Noszczyk, T., Kukulska, A., Szylar, M., Hernik, J., Dixon-Gough, R., ... & Kovács, K. F. (2018). Land use and land cover changes in post-socialist countries: Some observations from Hungary and Poland. Land use policy, 78, 1-18. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2018.06.017
Kukulska-Kozieł, A., Szylar, M., Cegielska, K., Noszczyk, T., Hernik, J., Gawroński, K., ... & Kovács, K. F. (2019). Towards three decades of spatial development transformation in two contrasting post-Soviet cities—Kraków and Budapest. Land use policy, 85, 328-339. doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2019.03.033
Zasada, I., Piorr, A., Novo, P., Villanueva, A. J., & Valánszki, I. (2017). What do we know about decision support systems for landscape and environmental management? A review and expert survey within EU research projects. Environmental Modelling & Software, 98, 63-74. doi.org/10.1016/j.envsoft.2017.09.012
Projects
Towards the Open Landscape Academy
Open Landscape Academy is a three part project focusing on democratic landscape transformation, launching in April 2023, including:
- Democratic Landscape Transformation, a semester-long international online educational seminar
- Intensive summer onsite
- Local Living Labs at several European sites
https://ledwiki.hfwu.de/index.php?title=Towards_the_Open_Landscape_Academy
InnoLAND
InnoLAND aims to facilitate transparency and recognition of skills and qualifications of landscape architecture professionals in the EU by developing the Common Training Framework for the Profession along with relevant tools to support its implementation.
https://iflaeurope.eu/index.php/site/general/innoland-project
ConnectGREEN
Through the ConnectGREEN project, partners from different countries and various fields of activity joined forces to increase the capacity of ecological corridors identification and management, and to overcome the conflict between infrastructure development and wildlife conservation.
