Changes in the cultural landscape of Wielkopolska in the transformation period (1989-2000) and land use categories determining them

Authors:

• Damian Roman Łowicki,
• Andrzej Jan Mizgajski

Abstract

The paper discusses regional-scale landscape changes during Poland's transformation of the 1990s. A formal analysis of changes in the share of each land-registration category in administrative units was made, in order that several types of landscape might be compared and changes in dynamics studied. The main purpose of the work described here has in turn been the identification of those land-use categories (landscape elements) exerting the greatest impact on the transformation of Wielkopolska's cultural landscape during the political, economic and social changes of the years 1989-2000. As the analysis was made for groups of gminas of differing degrees of urbanization (urban, urban-rural or rural gminas), as well as for several sub-regions of the voivodship, it was possible to categorise gminas in Wielkopolska in relation to the intensity of spatial changes in structure that they have presented. The spatial distribution analysis for changes in the Landscape Transformation Ratio attest to the fact that Wielkopolska voivodship is very much polarized where land-use changes are concerned. While the northern and eastern parts show extensiveness of land use reflecting the afforestation of the poorest soils (in the Piła region) and reclamation of post-mining areas (in the Konin-Turek region), Poznań and adjacent gminas are characterised by high-intensity land use in the wake of an expansion of areas designated for settlement and transport. Studies based on correlations between the main land-use categories show that the most frequent occurrence, observed in almost 80% of gminas, is a replacing of agricultural land by areas of settlement (correlation at -0.81). Other ascertained processes include transformations of miscellaneous areas into areas under water (correlation at -0.49), and of agricultural land into transport land (correlation at -0.41). A comparison of land-flow schemes between urban, urban-rural and rural gminas sustains the idea that relations among land-use categories become simplified in the following way: from rural gminas through urban-rural to urban ones. In urban gminas (other than Konin, in which reclamation processes dominate), a single process that definitely prevails is the growth of settlement areas at the expense of agricultural ones. In urban-rural gminas, and particularly rural ones, agricultural land is the source, not only for settlement areas, but also for forest, mining, miscellaneous and transport uses. In rural gminas, the percentage of miscellaneous areas has been in notable decline, whereas the percentage of the area under wasteland, water or forest is increasing. The study of multiple regressions demonstrated that the variability of settlement areas and wastelands is the factor determining 84% of the variability to the Wielkopolska landscape. An increase in areas under settlement is the dominant process in the three sub-regions. Against this background, the changes in areas of wasteland are processes of much lesser significance that do not appear dominant in any sub-region. An analysis of regression models in each type of gmina reveals differences between the impact of changes in area under agriculture or settlement and the LTR. In towns, almost all the land being designated for development was formerly areas agricultural, such that the weights of the shrinkage of agricultural land and expansion of settlement areas in landscape transformation are equal. In urban-rural gminas and in rural ones, the weight of settlement area changes is greater than that of changes in the area of agricultural land, as land designated for development in these gmina categories comes not only from formerly agricultural areas, but also from other extensive-use areas, e.g. forests or wastelands. Moreover, in urban-rural and rural gminas, land is transferred between agricultural and other extensive-use categories, ensuring that not every contraction in agricultural areas can be associated with an intensification of land use.