The substantial increase of forest cover in central Poland following extensive land abandonment : Szydłowiec county case study

Nowadays, Poland is one of the European countries most affected by agricultural land abandonment (ALA). Though considered to be a negative phenomenon, ALA opens up several options for planning future land uses critical for biodiversity conservation or future carbon sequestration. So far, many studies of ALA have been done in the mountainous areas in Poland, but less is known about the magnitude of ALA in other regions. In this paper we use the declassified CORONA satellite imagery (1969) to backdate the information on land cover and land abandonment from topographic maps from 1970s for the region located in central Poland and currently affected by widespread ALA. The information from archival materials is compared with current High-Resolution Layers and airborne laser scanning products, indicating that a forest cover increase of 23% was observed. The output of vegetation height analysis confirmed significant land use transformation from non-forest and ALA into forest area. Additionally, analysis of forest pattern change revealed that although forest core areas have increased since 1970, its share in total forest cover decreased due to newly established small forest patches. Our research shows the importance of archival remote sensing materials and indicates their role in understanding ALA-related forest cover change in Poland over the last 50 years

Railway network of Galicia and Austrian Silesia (1847-1914)

We describe and share reconstructed data of the historical railway network of Galicia and Austrian Silesia – two regions of the Habsburg Empire that covered more than 80 000 km2 that are currently divided among Czechia, Poland and Ukraine. The network dataset includes the times of railway appearance and of the most dynamic development until 1914, which marked the outbreak of the First World War. Most of the lines were reconstructed based on OpenStreetMap data, and the lines, which were closed down between 1914 and 2019 and are no longer available in spatial datasets, were reconstructed based on high-resolution satellite imagery and historical maps. Altogether, the network dataset covers nearly 5000 km on 127 lines. The data are accompanied by a set of attributes, i.e. the year of construction, length, starting point, finish point, and type (normal, narrow-gauge, etc.), and are available for download in the shp format

Changes in spatial discontinuity in settlement patterns in the Czech-Polish border area : a case study of Těšín Silesia

The paper presents a discontinuity-based analysis of the settlement pattern changes in the Czechia–Poland cross-border historical region of Těšín Silesia. An approach based on a well-known and popular method (regression discontinuity design) was applied to measure spatial discontinuity. To describe the spatiotemporal changes, a combination of spatial, statistical and cartographic methods was used. The observed differences have been developing for more than 150 years; at the start, this area belonged to the territory of one state, and later it was divided by a national border. The division of the region resulted in areas following different development trajectories

Mid-19th-century building structure locations in Galicia and Austrian Silesia under the Habsburg Monarchy

We produced a reconstruction of mid-19th-century building structure locations in former Galicia and Austrian Silesia (parts of the Habsburg Monarchy), which are located in present-day Czechia, Poland, and Ukraine and cover more than 80 000 km2. Our reconstruction was based on a homogeneous series of detailed Second Military Survey maps (1:28 800) that were the result of a cadastral mapping (1:2880) generalization. The dataset consists of two types of building structures based on the original map legend - residential and outbuildings (mainly farm-related buildings). The dataset's accuracy was assessed quantitatively and qualitatively by using independent data sources and may serve as an important input in studying long-term socioeconomic processes and human-environmental interactions or as a valuable reference for continental settlement reconstructions. The dataset is available at https://doi.org/10.17632/md8jp9ny9z.2 (Kaim et al., 2020a)

Impact of future land use change on large carnivores connectivity in the Polish Carpathians

The Polish Carpathians, like many mountain areas in Europe, are currently facing dynamic land use changes that will shape their future landscapes. As there are many different possible scenarios of potential change, we compared three different land use scenarios up until the year 2060 and assessed their impact on the potential habitat connectivity of two large carnivores—wolf (Canis lupus) and lynx (Lynx lynx). We first analysed the main directions of change within and outside the pan-European wildlife corridor located in the western part of the Polish Carpathians. Then we calculated and compared least-cost paths among randomly selected points for each land use scenario separately. Our results showed that the main direction of change—forest cover increase—may positively influence habitat connectivity for both wolf and lynx. However, due to the future spread of settlements, this positive impact might be locally limited. Therefore, to realise the potential conservation opportunities resulting from on-going land use changes, adequate orientation of spatial planning towards habitat connectivity is crucial

Mid-19th century road network dataset for Galicia and Austrian Silesia, Habsburg Empire

In this paper, we present the vector dataset of the historical road network of Galicia and Austrian Silesia (>80 000 km^{2}) in the mid-19th century - two regions of the former Habsburg Empire, located in Central Europe. The data were acquired manually from 455 map sheets of the Austrian second military survey map (1:28,800) for the four main road categories, according to the map legend. All the road categories present the roads passable at any time of the year, which was strategic information from the military point of view and build a network of 15 461 km. Currently, the data can be used by various researchers studying migrations, regional development, but also human impact on the environment, like land use change, invasive species introduction or landscape fragmentation. The dataset presents the times just before the most dynamic economic changes of the 19th century, which had a great impact on the region. On the other hand, the road network presented here was developed in the conditions of one country, the Habsburg Empire, which collapsed after the First World War, triggering the rise of new states and remodelling the transport network connections in Central Europe. Additionally, the data are accompanied by the layer of towns and villages with more than 2000 inhabitants, based on the 1857 Austrian census data

The wildland-urban interface in Poland reflects legacies of historical national borders

Context The wildland-urban interface (WUI) is an area where houses are located near wildland vegetation. As such, the WUI is a focal area of wildfire risk, human-wildlife conflicts, and other human-nature interactions. Although there is a wide consensus on the impact WUI existence might have, little is known about the WUI spatial determinants over long periods, especially in countries with long settlement history. Objectives Our goal here was to map the WUI across Poland, and to quantify the extent to which historical legacies shape current WUI pattern, since Poland is one of the countries, which experienced substantial political changes over time, which had an impact on historical settlement development. Methods We analysed a database of nearly 15 million building locations and a 10-m Sentinel-2-based land cover map to produce a country-wide WUI map of Poland. Then we compared the WUI pattern among parts of Poland which belonged to different political entities in 1900s and 1930s and also among different ecoregions. Lastly, we verified the effects of the historical borders or landscape units borders on WUI patterns with a discontinuity analysis. Results We found that a substantial part of Poland is WUI, and over 60% of all buildings are in WUI. However, WUI patterns differ considerably across the country, and WUI hotspots are located around the largest metropolitan areas in central and southern part of Poland and in the Carpathians. Furthermore, WUI patterns reflect pre-1945 national borders indicating long-term legacies of past settlement patterns and urban planning approaches. Diversity among ecoregions was much less pronounced than among past political entities. Conclusions Our work shows that current WUI pattern is to large extent shaped by former political conditions, which is likely true not only in Poland, but also in many parts of Europe and elsewhere where settlement history goes back centuries

Uncertainty in historical land-use reconstructions with topographic maps

The paper presents the outcomes of the uncertainty investigation of a long-term forest cover change analysis in the Polish Carpathians (nearly 20,000 km2) and Swiss Alps (nearly 10,000 km2) based on topographic maps. Following Leyk et al. (2005) all possible uncertainties are grouped into three domains - production-oriented, transformation- oriented and application-oriented. We show typical examples for each uncertainty domain, encountered during the forest cover change analysis and discuss consequences for change detection. Finally, a proposal for reliability assessment is presented