Land-Use Cover Changes (LUCCs) are one of the main problems for the preservation of landscapes and natural biodiversity. Protected Areas (PAs) do not escape this threat. Poland is among the European leaders in terms of the variety of landscapes and the share of an area designated as a protected area. However, as many as 78% of the habitats have poor or bad conservation status based on EEA reports. The changes in PAs were usually smaller than in the surrounding buffer zones, which may indicate their effectiveness. The scale of land-cover flows (LCFs) changed within particular forms of protected areas, though afforestation and deforestation predominating in all area types. National reserves and parks were the most stable in terms of land cover structures. However, human settlements increased around the protected areas, potentially increasing threats to their ecological integrity.
Region | Total Protected Areas | With Management Effectiveness Evaluations | Number of Countries | Terrestrial Protected Area Coverage % | Marine Protected Area Coverage % |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Asia & Pacific | 34,710 | 2821 | 56 | 15.37 | 18.56 |
Africa | 8559 | 1000 | 58 | 14.11 | 12.35 |
Europe | 158,452 | 15,719 | 62 | 13.14 | 8.44 |
Latin America&Caribbean | 9971 | 1282 | 52 | 24.21 | 23.04 |
Polar | 35 | 3 | 5 | 41.28 | 44.78 |
North America | 45,272 | 117 | 3 | 11.85 | 16.51 |
West Asia | 378 | 65 | 12 | 3.82 | 1.11 |
According to the Nature Conservation Act, there are 10 forms of nature conservation in Poland (Table 2): 8 forms of surface protection and 2 forms of individual protection (objects or species) [31]. The Polish definitions of these areas do not always coincide with International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) categories of protected areas (Figure 3). For example, according to the criteria used by the IUCN, none of the 1499 Polish nature reserves has been classified as a Strict Nature Reserve (category I), and only 1 is classified as Ib (Wilderness area). The remaining majority was classified into the “Not Reported” group. Furthermore, only 16 of 23 Polish national parks have the status of an “international” national park (category II), while the rest are classified as category V, a protected landscape area, or not reported [23].
No. | Nature Conservation Form | Number of Sites | Area [Thousand Hectares] * | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
2000 | 2020 | 2000 | 2020 | ||
1. | Nature reserves | 1307 | 1499 | 148.7 | 169.6 |
2. | National parks | 22 | 23 | 306.5 | 315.1 |
3. | Landscape parks | 120 | 124 | 2446.9 | 2531.8 |
4. | Natura 2000 areas | x | 145 (SPAs) 849 (SACs) |
x | 4911.4 (SPAs) 3491.3 (SACs) |
5. | Protected landscape areas | 407 | 407 | 7137.7 | 6925.6 |
6. | Landscape-nature complexes | 170 | 263 | 78.1 | 118.8 |
7. | Ecological areas | 6113 | 7654 | 44.9 | 55.4 |
8. | Documentation sites | 103 | 178 | 1.0 | 1.0 |
9. | Monuments of nature | 33 094 | 34 890 | x | x |
10. | Plants, animals, and fungi species protection | 715 plants species 322 fungi species 801 animals species |
x | x |
In the analyzed period of 2000–2018, the share of nature conservation areas in the territory of Poland increased from 38% to almost 44%, mainly due to the implementation of a new form of nature protection (European Ecological Network Natura 2000 sites) and the establishment of a new national park in 2001 (Ujscie Warty).
The land cover structure on PAs underwent slight changes. Out of 44 land cover classes identified at level 3 CLC, 32 classes were identified in Poland, including 28 different classes of land cover forms in protected areas. They are dominated by forests (classes 312 and 313) and arable land (class 211), together covering about 92% of the PAs area in 2000 (Table S1 in Supplementary Materials). The matrix of transformations between land cover classes in PAs is presented in Figure 7. From 2000 to 2018, the most frequently transformed CLC class was 312 (coniferous forest). It was transformed into class 324 (transitional woodland shrubs). Slightly less intense but also quite frequent were transformations in the opposite direction—from class 324 to classes 312 and 313 (mixed forest). However, the area covered by such flows was almost 35% smaller than that of flows 312–324. Even so, the total forest area increased by 2.43% between 2000 and 2018 (Table 4). Besides artificial surfaces (group 1 in level 1 CLC), water bodies (group 5) were the most stable over time. Small changes were also observed in classes 411 (inland marshes) and 412 (peatbogs). They constituted, respectively, 0.05% and 0.01% of all transformations and covered 0.1% of the areas in class 411 and 0.3% of areas classified as 412. As for the transformations towards anthropogenic areas (classes 1xx), they mainly concerned agricultural land, in particular classes 211 (non-irrigated arable land) and 242 (complex cultivation patterns). The area of urbanized areas increased by as much as 85% and agricultural land decreased by 16%, including the reduction of the area of meadows, pastures, and mixed crops by almost 10% (Table 4).
Land Cover Type | CA [ha] (%) | PLAND [%] | AREA_MN [ha] | TE [m] | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
PAs | PABs | PAs | PABs | PAs | PABs | PAs | PABs | |
Urban areas | +188,517 (85.3) | +158,290 (49.0) | 1.41 | 2.98 | 2.3 | −4.83 | +20,840,050 | 17,308,300 |
Urban greenery | +8020 (61.5) | +4804 (25.5) | 0.06 | 0.09 | 0.54 | −1.62 | +691,700 | +607,600 |
Arable land | −244,672 (−6.5) | −132,426 (−5.1) | −1.83 | −2.93 | 0.99 | −2.63 | −12,651,400 | −6,680,300 |
Pastures 1 | −250,453 (−9.5) | −127,760 (−13.9) | −1.87 | −2.58 | −4.14 | −2.01 | −14,049,450 | −13,180,100 |
Forests | +145,255 (2.4) | +83,128 (7.0) | 1.09 | 1.41 | −1.4 | 1.04 | +6,282,250 | +5,323,100 |
Shrubs and scrub | +143,136 (66.1) | +50,960 (97.2) | 1.07 | 0.97 | −8.4 | −0.71 | +12,803,300 | +5,295,800 |
Open spaces | −2529 (−18.4) | −895 (−22.2) | −0.02 | −0.02 | 20.39 | −0.79 | −228,700 | −126,700 |
Wetland | +2680 (2.8) | −386 (−6.2) | 0.02 | −0.01 | −7.13 | −2.73 | +372,400 | −22,800 |
Water | +10,047 (2.2) | +5872 (7.3) | 0.08 | 0.1 | 2.82 | 1.9 | +529,750 | +357,400 |
Land Cover Type | TCA [ha] | CPLAND [%] | CORE_MN [ha] | NP | SPLIT | LSI | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
PAs | PABs | PAs | PABs | PAs | PABs | PAs | PABs | PAs | PABs | PAs | PABs | |
Urban areas | +53,952 | +99,985 | 0.4 | 1.88 | 0.35 | −4.15 | 6 078 | 4 252 | −2,786,047 | −100,039 | 54.23 | 38.73 |
Urban greenery | +3431 | +2846 | 0.03 | 0.05 | 0.17 | −1.35 | 271 | 250 | −29,208,137 | −1,661,509 | 7.68 | 5.96 |
Arable land | −157,168 | −110,277 | −1.18 | −2.43 | 0.68 | −2.29 | −2 365 | −644 | 2212 | 2403 | −10.45 | −4.63 |
Pastures 1 | −148,921 | −83,988 | −1.11 | −1.7 | −2.77 | −1.32 | −1 428 | −2 306 | 10,274 | 43,977 | −12.93 | −17.89 |
Forests | +87,605 | +64,426 | 0.66 | 1.09 | −2.77 | 0.81 | 450 | 1 312 | 21 | −3085 | 5.54 | 5.54 |
Shrubs and scrub | +58,284 | +33,493 | 0.44 | 0.63 | −7.62 | −0.71 | 2 650 | 1 858 | 203,713 | −2,027,190 | 36.72 | 24.97 |
Open spaces | −1000 | −537 | −0.01 | −0.01 | 12.41 | −0.45 | −54 | −68 | 2,151,017 | −7,603,132 | −3.13 | −2.59 |
Wetland | 180 | −274 | 0 | −0.01 | −6.15 | −1.77 | 67 | 56 | −24,042 | 2,601,001 | 2.21 | 0.04 |
Water | +4919 | +4557 | 0.04 | 0.08 | 1.41 | 1.47 | −7 | 36 | 486 | −808 | 1.03 | 1.27 |
This entry is adapted from the peer-reviewed paper 10.3390/su14020753