Maismaapiirkondades

Maismaapiirkondades is Estonian for onshore regions. It denotes land-based parts of the landscape, excluding seas, lakes, and other water bodies, and is used in fields such as geography, hydrology, environmental planning, and energy development. The term is often contrasted with offshore zones and inland waters. In practice, maismaapiirkondades are delineated for purposes such as land-use planning, conservation, infrastructure siting, and resource management. Boundaries are defined with geographic information systems (GIS) and may be based on natural features like coastlines or watershed boundaries, or on administrative units such as municipalities or counties, depending on the context.

Applications include environmental impact assessments, habitat connectivity analyses, and risk modelling for floods, landslides, and wildfires on land. In energy planning, maismaapiirkondades help evaluate where onshore wind farms or solar installations can be developed within regulatory and ecological constraints. The concept emphasizes terrestrial processes and constraints—soil, vegetation, topography, land cover, and human land use—and is often used alongside offshore and aquatic regional classifications to provide a complete geographic framework.

Onshore regions host most terrestrial ecosystems, agriculture, urban settlements, and infrastructure, making land management decisions central to planning. Data sources include satellite imagery, topographic maps, land-cover datasets, and environmental registries. In cross-border studies, onshore boundaries may extend beyond political borders to reflect ecological or hydrological units.