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Fire regime shifts are driven by climate and natural vegetation changes, but can be strongly affected by human land management. Yet, it is poorly known how humans have influenced fire regimes prior to active wildfire suppression. Among the last 250 years, the human contribution to the global increase in fire occurrence during the mid-19th century is especially unclear, as data sources are limited. Here, we test the extent to which forest management has driven fire regime shifts in a temperate forest landscape. We combine multiple fire proxies (macroscopic charcoal and fire-related biomarkers) derived from highly resolved lake sediments (i.e., 3–5 years per sample), and apply a new statistical approach to classify source area- and temperature-specific fire regimes (biomass burnt, fire episodes). We compare these records with independent climate and vegetation reconstructions. We find two prominent fire regime shifts during the 19th and 20th centuries, driven by an adaptive socio-ecological cycle in human forest management. Although individual fire episodes were triggered mainly by arson (as described in historical documents) during dry summers, the biomass burnt increased unintentionally during the mid-19th century due to the plantation of flammable, fast-growing pine tree monocultures needed for industrialization. State forest management reacted with active fire management and suppression during the 20th century. However, pine cover has been increasing since the 1990s and climate projections predict increasingly dry conditions, suggesting a renewed need for adaptations to reduce the increasing fire risk.

Fire regime shifts are driven by climate and natural vegetation changes, but can be strongly affected by human land management. Yet, it is poorly known how humans have influenced fire regimes prior to active wildfire suppression. Among the last 250 years, the human contribution to the global increase in fire occurrence during the mid-19th century is especially unclear, as data sources are limited. Here, we test the extent to which forest management has driven fire regime shifts in a temperate forest landscape. We combine multiple fire proxies (macroscopic charcoal and fire-related biomarkers) derived from highly resolved lake sediments (i.e., 3–5 years per sample), and apply a new statistical approach to classify source area- and temperature-specific fire regimes (biomass burnt, fire episodes). We compare these records with independent climate and vegetation reconstructions. We find two prominent fire regime shifts during the 19th and 20th centuries, driven by an adaptive socio-ecological cycle in human forest management. Although individual fire episodes were triggered mainly by arson (as described in historical documents) during dry summers, the biomass burnt increased unintentionally during the mid-19th century due to the plantation of flammable, fast-growing pine tree monocultures needed for industrialization. State forest management reacted with active fire management and suppression during the 20th century. However, pine cover has been increasing since the 1990s and climate projections predict increasingly dry conditions, suggesting a renewed need for adaptations to reduce the increasing fire risk. © 2019 Dietze et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

The paper concerns the possibilities of using educational paths as one form of fieldwork for activating learning. Educational paths, also fostering informal education of a wider society, allow for conducting direct observations and measurements, and are a great source of knowledge about the immediate environment. This form of learning enables interdisciplinary education, combining geography with other school subjects. To become a useful tool in education, however, an educational path needs to be carefully designed and built and accompanied by teacher’s materials (guide and handouts). All the examples of educational paths given in the paper come from the Kujawsko-Pomorskie Voivodeship (Poland).

Until the mid-19th century, the primary source of energy used in the industry was the energy of wind and water. As a measure of the degree of economic development of the region there were presented the number and size of watermills and wind mills. After the Industrial Revolution there has been a fundamental change in the type of plants using wind or water energy. It consisted in the gradual disappearance of mill’s driving functions to the production of electricity. Currently, there has been a renewed interest in old mills for the location of modern wind turbines and small hydropower plants. This paper presents the changes of utilization of wind and water energy in the area of contemporary Kujawsko-Pomorskie Region. It has been shown that the areas of windmills prevalence converged with areas of the lowest degree of water resources – without watermills. Wiatr i woda stanowiły do połowy XIX w. podstawowe źródła energii dla zakładów produkcyjnych. Jako miarę stopnia rozwoju gospodarczego danego regionu przedstawiano liczbę i wielkość młynów wodnych i wietrznych. Wskutek rewolucji przemysłowej nastąpiła zasadnicza zmiana rodzaju zakładów wykorzystujących energię wiatru i wody. Polegała ona na stopniowym odejściu od funkcji napędzania urządzeń młyna, i produkcji energii elektrycznej. Obecnie notuje się ponowne zainteresowanie dawnymi lokalizacjami młynów w celu ich przeznaczenia na potrzeby nowoczesnych elektrowni wiatrowych i małych elektrowni wodnych (MEW). W niniejszym artykule przedstawiono zmiany w zakresie pozyskiwania energii wiatru i wody na obszarze obecnego województwa kujawsko-pomorskiego. Wykazano, że obszary występowania wiatraków pokrywały się z obszarami o najniższych zasobach wodnych, na których nie funkcjonowały młyny wodne.

We revise the conceptual model of calcite varves and present, for the first time, a dual lake monitoring study in two alkaline lakes providing new insights into the seasonal sedimentation processes forming these varves. The study lakes, Tiefer See in NE Germany and Czechowskie in N Poland, have distinct morphology and bathymetry, and therefore, they are ideal to decipher local effects on seasonal deposition. The monitoring setup in both lakes is largely identical and includes instrumental observation of (i) meteorological parameters, (ii) chemical profiling of the lake water column including water sampling, and (iii) sediment trapping at both bi‐weekly and monthly intervals. We then compare our monitoring data with varve micro‐facies in the sediment record. One main finding is that calcite varves form complex laminae triplets rather than simple couplets as commonly thought. Sedimentation of varve sub‐layers in both lakes is largely dependent on the lake mixing dynamics and results from the same seasonality, commencing with diatom blooms in spring turning into a pulse of calcite precipitation in summer and terminating with a re‐suspension layer in autumn and winter, composed of calcite patches, plant fragments and benthic diatoms. Despite the common seasonal cycle, the share of each of these depositional phases in the total annual sediment yield is different between the lakes. In Lake Tiefer See calcite sedimentation has the highest yields, whereas in Lake Czechowskie, the so far underestimated re‐suspension sub‐layer dominates the sediment accumulation. Even in undisturbed varved sediments, re‐suspended material becomes integrated in the sediment fabric and makes up an important share of calcite varves. Thus, while the biogeochemical lake cycle defines the varves’ autochthonous components and micro‐facies, the physical setting plays an important role in determining the varve sub‐layers’ proportion., Leibniz‐Gemeinschaft http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100001664, Narodowe Centrum Nauki http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100004281, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100001659, ICLEA