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Riparian hardwood forests of Quercus robur, Ulmus spp and Fraxinus spp that are present along major rivers are valuable communities protected by the EU Habitat Directive and recommended for monitoring. Part of the reason for that is relative rarity on the scale of Europe as a whole, and also in Poland. This in turn reflects the way in which fertile habitats were, in their majority, deforested long ago, drained and changed into grasslands or arable land. Additionally, the greater part of these habitats have lost their specific features, as a result of river engineering and – primarily – the construction of the river embankments that have acted to limit flooding and alluvial processes, in that way also initiating change in the composition of both soils and plant communities. Specifically, this article presents selected results of the research project: Riparian hardwood forest services in the middle Vistula river valley. One of the main objectives thereof was to assess the condition of forest ecosystems from which flooding has now been absent for at least 50 years, as well as to prepare guidelines for actions necessary to maintain or restore their diversity, and proper ecological and biological functions. Our research questions therefore revolved around components of riparian hardwood forest ecosystems have been most changed … and why? The research was conducted in six riparian hardwood forests (to date unmonitored) located in the valley of the middle Vistula (in Mazowieckie voivodship). Relevant work was carried out using the standard monitoring guidelines – as primarily based on an assessment of vegetation composition and structure together with water conditions. However, in the work in question, these were augmented by additional analyses allowing for detailed characterisations of soil, the topoclimate, and the species diversity achieved by selected groups of invertebrate (Hymenoptera: Apidae: Bombus and Haplotaxida: Lumbricidae). The communities selected represent multi-functional, species-rich forests. Extensive use of the studied riparian mixed forests ensures that deadwood resources are quite considerable. Moreover, the studied forests exert a strong impact when it comes to mitigation of climate locally. The observed soil types indicate fertile and biologically-active habitats, as well as to soil development largely determined by the height of the groundwater table causing the gleyic process in the lower parts of profiles. However, in some forest patches it is possible to note transformations related to habitat drying, with significant canopy gaps and disturbances of topsoil and the undergrowth. There was a great abundance of invasive alien plant species (mainly Impatiens parviflora) in the undergrowth. Moisture conditions have an impact on the occasional occurrence of Lumbricidae associated with wet and flooded areas. In turn, the domination by Bombus of open-habitat species indicates a transformation of forest structure, and the patchy nature of riparian forests located in a rural landscape. The obtained results demonstrate that protective actions should focus on ensuring adequate soil-moisture conditions, and on restoring the natural structure of vegetation with a view to invasions of alien species being hampered. Another important issue is the proper use of land adjacent to forest patches, as fallows prove to be invaded quickly by the kenophytes preferring abandoned and disturbed places.

Chapter 6 is the main analytical part of the book and forms the basis for the following synthetic chapters. It presents the entire path of indicator development for the evaluation of ES potentials in the postglacial landscape. Altogether, 29 ecosystem services were assessed by means of 35 indicators. Services are arranged firstly according to the type of assessment (expert/social), and then follow CICES V5.1 classification and coding. In expert assessment provisioning and regulating services were taken into account while cultural services were evaluated through social assessment. All subchapters devoted to particular services comprise: ES description (a table with ES location in CICES V5.1, indicator metadata, and briefly mentioned data sources), theoretical framework, assessment method and indicator values. Each subchapter ends with a map showing ES potential in the study area. Additionally, all services assessed for ecosystems in the narrow sense have their spatial pattern described by means of landscape metrics.

This chapter is a synthesis of the analytical results presented in Chapter 6 . However, the investigation was conducted only on 29 ecosystem services (ES) indicators for which the ecosystem (detailed or Mapping and Assessment of Ecosystems and their Services [MAES]–derived) was the spatial reference unit. To start with, synthetic assessment matrices were generated, which served as a basis for the majority of further analyses. Rank values obtained through expert and social assessment were compared, where possible. In the next step, the aggregated potential for each ecosystem type was calculated and ES hotspots were identified and then both mapped, separately for each ES section and in total. Next, the interactions among services and similarities among ecosystem types were investigated. Finally, spatial patterns of ES potentials, described in short for each indicator separately in the analytical chapter, were compared with each other and further analyzed using landscape metrics.

This chapter is the summary of the book. It presents briefly the content of previous chapters and reflects on the potential approach and methodological solutions adopted in the research. It also discusses the advantages and limitations of the two main assessment methods used: expert and social. The main research outcomes are listed, followed by the verification of hypotheses framing the research. Finally, possible applications of the developed methodological solutions are shown.

This chapter describes the impact of various factors on the social assessment of ecosystem services (ES) potentials. The data on the frequency of ES use and sociodemographic characteristics of beneficiaries (e.g., age, gender, place of residence, level of education) were obtained through questionnaire survey. The results indicate that the intensity of ES use depends on the level of education. In general, better-educated people benefit more from nature. In turn, frequent use of the gifts of nature contributes to a better understanding of its value and appreciation of the services provided. It was also shown that the more often people interact with nature, the greater they perceive the ecosystem potentials to provide cultural and regulating services. However, this effect was not observed in the case of provisioning services. Moreover, people staying permanently and making their living in the area differ from tourists as regards their hierarchy of needs and expectations toward local nature.

This chapter presents the basic assumptions of the most recent version of the Common International Classification of Ecosystem Services (CICES V5.1), selected as the framework of our research. It has been designed to help measure, account for, and assess ecosystem services. In contrast to many other classification systems, it includes only three main sections (provisioning, regulation and maintenance, and cultural) and relates only to final ecosystem services, which are defined as the contributions that ecosystems make to human well-being. In principle, CICES covers contributions that arise from living processes. However, the latest version (V5.1) includes also the nonliving parts of ecosystems, for example, water, mineral substances, wind, and solar energy. Nevertheless, when framing our research scope, we decided to focus only on biotic ecosystem outputs and we restricted further ecosystem services to those that are provided by animals, plants, and fungi that were formed in the Holocene.

This chapter presents the spatial reference units applied in this study. Four different types of reference unit were distinguished: ecosystem in the narrow sense, Mapping and Assessment of Ecosystems and their Services (MAES)-derived ecosystem, hunting unit, and landscape. When distinguishing ecosystems in the narrow sense account was taken not only of land cover, but also of habitat conditions (fertility and humidity) and forest succession stage. The extended typology of rural postglacial ecosystems, used in expert assessment, includes 35 terrestrial and 7 lake ecosystem types. If the type of data did not give a possibility to estimate the potential of nature for ecosystems, it was calculated for heterogeneous spatial units, covering a number of different ecosystems: 15 hunting units and 91 individual landscape units. In the questionnaire survey aimed at assessing ecosystem potentials from the beneficiary perspective, a simplified ecosystem division was introduced, based on the MAES level 2 typology. Only forests were further divided into the three subtypes.

Identifying the potential of ecosystems to provide ecosystem services (ES) is largely dependent on the detail and completeness of the base ecosystem map. The existing guidelines for the construction of this type of map include only a few basic types of ecosystems that work only at a national or international scale and are insufficient to identify the full potential of ecosystem services at local or regional scales. The aim of the study was to develop a comprehensive map of ecosystem types for mapping ecosystem services at a local and regional scale in three selected communes located within young glacial landscape (NE Poland). As a result, a detailed map of ecosystems has been constructed containing 42 ecosystem types including age and habitat categories. This original map is the first detailed cartographic work that can be successfully used to determine the potential for ecosystem services to be provided by areas analysed in large scales. The proposed approach has a universal character and can be also applied to any area analysed at similar spatial scales.

The Western Bieszczady mountains are an example of a region of Poland whose population suffered extremely heavily from the effects of wartime and post-war migrations linked to political repression. In 1944-1947 and later in 1951, from more than 100 villages in the region that had existed since the 15th and 16th centuries, approximately 90% of the total number of inhabitants were forcibly relocated – chiefly ethnic Ruthenians (Boykos). The scale in time and space, and the consequences for the landscape, of the natural and socioeconomic processes taking place there over the next 70 years have proved remarkable on even a European scale. The diversity of the former human activity, followed by a combination of abiotic and biotic renaturalisation processes and secondary human pressure, has led to the creation of unique spatial units. The main aim of this article is to address problems relating to the definition and classification of the contemporary landscape of the areas permanently abandoned by human populations in the Western Bieszczady, through the lens of selected conceptual perspectives of other researchers. Deliberations also covered the memory of the subject landscape in the material and information layers (structural and functional continuum, sustainability of spatial units, time in the sense of the historical evolution of landscapes).

Presented here are the means of generating and possibilities for applying a digital map of sequences of ‘forest/non‑forest’ states in a study area, as based on topographic maps for seven instances in time (between 1800 and the present day). There is also a brief description of cartographic material used, as well as the methods applied in generating a variability model. The study area was then analysed from the point of view of differences in the aforementioned sequences of ‘forest/non‑forest’ states, this revealing marked contrasts between two Polish regions that are adjacent, but were conditioned differently in the past, in political and social terms. The study ends by considering the relationship between the distinguished sequences and habitat type, as referred to in terms of potential natural vegetation.