Anton Melik Geographical Institute

Contact

Geografski inštitut Anton Melik

Gosposka 13, SI-1000 Ljubljana

http://giam2.zrc-sazu.si

gi@zrc-sazu.si

Phone386 (0) 1 470 6350

Drago Perko, Director

drago@zrc-sazu.si

Phone386 (0) 1 470 6360

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Anton Melik Geographical Institute was founded in 1946 by the Slovene Academy of Science and Arts, and in 1976 it was named after the greatest Slovene geographer, academician Anton Melik (1890–1966), who was the first head of the institute. Since 1981 the institute has been a constituent member of the Academy's Scientific Research Centre (ZRC-SAZU).

Fields of Work

Until 1992 the Anton Melik Geographical Institute was mainly engaged in research into glaciers, glacial and fluvial transformation of the land surface, flooded areas, natural disasters, mountain farms in Slovenia and social geography. Since 1993 the institute's main tasks have been to conduct geographical researches of Slovenia and its landscapes and to prepare basic geographical texts on Slovenia as a country and as a part of the world. Research is mostly directed towards physical, social and regional geography, and thematic cartography.

Today it has eight organisational units: the Department of Physical Geography, the Department of Social Geography, the Department of Regional Geography, the Department of Natural Disasters, the Department of Geographical Information Systems, the Department of Thematic Cartography, the Department of Environmental Protection, the Slovene Geographical Museum, and the Slovene Geographical Library. The institute houses a cartographic collection and three specialised geographical collections: Landscapes of Slovenia, Settlements of Slovenia, and Glaciers of Slovenia. The institute is also the headquarters of the Commission for the Standardisation of Geographical Names of the Government of the Republic of Slovenia [Komisija za standardizacijo zemljepisnih imen Vlade Republike Slovenije].

Publishing activities

The institute publishes three scientific publications: Geografija Slovenije [Geography of Slovenia] is a series of books which appears in Slovenian language once or twice a year; Acta geographica Slovenica/Geografski zbornik is a review published twice a year in English and Slovenian; and Geografski informacijski sistemi v Sloveniji [Geographical information systems in Slovenia] is a bulletin published every second (even-numbered) year in Slovenian. Articles can be downloaded from the institute's homepage.

International projects

The institute is active in several international projects. The current projects include "Social Capacity Building for Natural Hazards (CapHaz-Net)", "Climate Change and its Impact on Tourism in the Alpine Space (ClimAlpTour)", "Improved management of contaminated aquifers by integration of source tracking, monitoring tools and decision strategies (INCOME)", and "Natural hazards as a factor of landscape transformations and spatial planning changes in Serbia and Slovenia".

In March 2011 the Anton Melik Geographical Institute got the support of the European Regional Development Fund for a new multi-annual transnational project: SY_CULTour opens the topic of the synergy of culture and tourism, i.e. utilization of cultural potentials in less favored rural regions. Project partners are Bulgarian, Hungarian, Greek, Italian, Serbian and Slovene (Municipality of Jesenice and Regional Development Centre) institutions that have set up a database of good practices and a list of cultural values with development potential discovered in the SY_CULTour pilot areas.

See also

• Slovene Geographical Museum
• Scientific Research Centre (ZRC SAZU), Slovene Academy of Science and Arts

External links

• Anton Melik Geographical Institute website
• Article on Anton Melik
• Anton Melik on Wikipedia
• Acta Geographica (articles in Slovenian and English)
• SY_CULTour project website