Stan i perspektywy kształcenia w zakresie GIS i geoinformacji w Polsce na uniwersyteckich kierunkach geograficznych

Norway Grants FSS/2014/HEI/W/0114/U/001

Geodiversity and Geoheritage: Crossing Disciplines and Approaches

In recent times, two terms, which are being used more and more frequently have been introduced into scientific nomenclature: Geoheritage (cf. Reynard and Brilha 2018 and references therein) and Geodiversity (cf. Gray 2013, 2018 and Najwer and Zwoliński 2014 and references therein). The concept of geoheritage was introduced in the 1970s (cf. Martini 1994), whereas geodiversity has been recognised as a concept worth investigating from the 1990s onwards (e.g. Wiedenbein 1993; Sharples 1995) but several recent attempts have been made to properly define and assess it (cf. Zwoliński et al. 2018 and references therein). Since their appearance, both concepts have aroused strong interest and debate, not only of researchers in Earth Sciences but also of experts in biology (e.g. Parks and Mulligan 2010; Hjort et al. 2012), spatial planning (e.g. Poiraud et al. 2016; Gordon et al. 2018; Bruschi and Coratza 2018 and references therein), general tourism (cf. Newsome and Dowling 2018 and reference therein) as well as national geotourism (e.g. Asrat et al. 2008 for Ethiopia and Migoń 2012 for Poland and references therein) and cultural heritage (e.g. Margottini 2007; Přikryl and Torok 2010; Coratza et al. 2016; Reynard et al. 2017), especially those interested in integrated and interdisciplinary approaches. This increase in awareness is testified within scientific circles by the numerous scientific conferences, workshops and sessions on geoheritage and geodiversity issues organised during the last two decades. Worthy of note is the increasing success from 2013 of the joint session on geoheritage and geodiversity in the European Geosciences Union General Assembly, which demonstrates the importance of heritage issues to the geoscience community

Recesja lądolodów i lodowców oraz degradacja wieloletniej zmarzliny

Polar regions are an object of study of several disciplines, including cryology. The cryosphere embraces snow cover, sea ice, ice sheets, shelf ice, glaciers and ice caps, permafrost, as well as river and lake ice. The aim of the present paper is to address problems of the distribution and disappearance of glaciers and permafrost as an effect of the observed climate change leading primarily to a warming of the polar zones. Glacier ice found on the surface of the Earth is one of the most sensitive geoindicators of the climate change taking place in the geosphere. There is some inertia in the observable and measurable response of glacier systems relative to the change. It is estimated that for the Marine Antarctic region the delay may be some 25 years. Another feature characteristic of the recession of ice sheets and glaciers is the different rate of retreat of their fronts depending on location: ice sheets and glaciers ending on land usually display a much slower recession rate than those reaching the sea. This is combined with local, regional and global weather anomalies in temperature and precipitation which, together with the features of the bedrock, can sometimes seriously affect the recession pattern of individual glaciers. In the article examples are given of glacier recession in Greenland, Spitsbergen, Antarctica, and the Antarctic Peninsula. The areas emerging from under the ice are among the fastest, most dynamically evolving ones in the world, undergoing processes of geosuccession. Apart from an increase in the thickness of the active layer, a rise in the temperature of permafrost itself can be observed. What favours the penetration of heat into the ground is the increasingly frequent absence of snow cover, or a clear reduction in its thickness. Those changes make continuous permafrost pass into discontinuous and then sporadic permafrost. In the Arctic regions permafrost degradation has the greatest impact on construction and network infrastructure, like roads, railway lines, and telecommunication facilities. Higher air temperatures, the recession of glaciers, a lower depth of freezing, and changes in the amount and quality of precipitation lead primarily to a shift of the climatic-vegetation zones northwards and the climatic-vegetation altitude zones upwards. This situation has brought about an extension of the growing season by 30-40%. The result has been geoecological transformations among the glacial, proglacial, periglacial and paraglacial systems at a variety of spatiotemporal scales that form the present-day landscape structure of the polar zones in the northern and southern hemispheres, and in high-altitude areas

Variability of Water Chemistry in Tundra Lakes, Petuniabukta Coast, Central Spitsbergen, Svalbard

Samples of water from small tundra lakes located on raised marine terraces on the eastern coast of Petuniabukta (Ebbadalen, Central Spitsbergen) were examined to assess the changes in water chemistry that had occurred during the summer seasons of 2001–2003 and 2006. The unique environmental conditions of the study region include the predominance of sedimentary carbonate and sulphate rocks, low precipitation values, and an active permafrost layer with a maximum thickness of 1.2 m. The average specific electric conductivity (EC) values for the three summer seasons in the four lakes ranged from 242 to 398 μS cm−1. The highest EC values were observed when the air temperature decreased and an ice cover formed (cryochemical effects). The ion composition was dominated by calcium (50.7 to 86.6%), bicarbonates (39.5 to 86.4%), and sulphate anions. The high concentrations of HCO3−, SO42−, and Ca2+ ions were attributed to the composition of the bedrock, which mainly consists of gypsum and anhydrite. The average proportion of marine components in the total load found in the Ebbadalen tundra lake waters was estimated to be 8.1%. Precipitation supplies sulphates (as much as 69–81%) and chlorides (14–36%) of nonsea origin. The chief source of these compounds may be contamination from the town of Longyearbyen. Most ions originate in the crust, the active layer of permafrost, but some are atmospheric in origin and are either transported or generated in biochemical processes. The concentrations of most components tend to increase during the summer months, reaching a maximum during freezing and partially precipitating onto the bottom sediments

Geo-questionnaire in urban planning – preliminary results of the experimental application in Poland

Changes in the attitude of local authorities towards the public participation in the decision making processes have prompted development of new methods of such involvement. As far as the urban planning is concerned, of particular potential is the so-called Public Participation Geographic Information Systems (PPGIS). One of the tools used for the purpose is a geo-questionnaire, combining the benefits of a standard questionnaire and a map, which permits collecting information on particular sites and on the respondents’ ideas on localisation of new objects and functionalities.Within the project “Geoportal supporting public participation in urban planning”, in the years 2015–2016, a study was undertaken to explore the effectiveness and usefulness of the geo-questionnaire. Five pilot studies were performed in the Poznań and Łódź agglomerations. The geo-questionnaires concerned the local spatial management plan in Rokietnica (Poznań agglomeration), landscape protection in Łódź, conception of the transportation system development in Łódź, conception of urban design of the Łazarski Market in Poznań, and the Map of Local Needs in the city center of Poznań. The aim of the study was to present the preliminary results of the initial implementations of geo-questionnaire developed within the project Geoportal supporting public participation in urban planning. The applications of geo-questionnaire have been analysed taking into account the characteristics of implementation areas, characteristics of users, the effectiveness of recruitment methods and opinions about the tool from two points of view: the respondents and the recipients of results

Existing and proposed urban geosites values resulting from geodiversity of Poznań City

Poznań, a city in central-western Poland, is located in the lowland region but has no less attractive geomorphological and human history. It was here that Poland was born at the end of the tenth century. The city’s location is connected with the meridian course of the Warta River valley. In contrast, in the northern part of the city, there is a vast area of the frontal moraines of the Poznań Phase of the Weichselian Glaciation. Against the backdrop of the geomorphological development of the city, the article presents the existing geosites, classified as urban geosites. The present geosites include three lapidaries with Scandinavian postglacial erratics, one of them also with stoneware, a fragment of a frontal push moraine and impact craters. Besides, three locations of proposed geosites with rich geomorphological and/or human history were identified. These are as follows: the peat bog located in the northern part of the city, defence ramparts as exhumed anthropogenic forms, and the Warta River valley. The existing and proposed geosites in Poznań were evaluated in three ways. In general, it should be assumed that the proposed new geosites are higher ranked than the current ones