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DESIGNING A MAP OF THE GEODIVERSITY OF LANDFORMS IN POLAND

Conference Paper · January 2008

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Zwoliński Zb., 2008. Designing a map of the geodiversity of landforms in Poland. IAG and AIGEO International Meeting
Environmental Analysis and Geomorphological Mapping for a Sustainable Development, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, February 26,
2008. Abstract Book: 18-22.

DESIGNING A MAP OF THE GEODIVERSITY OF LANDFORMS IN POLAND

Zwolinski Zb.

Institute of Paleogeography and Geoecology, Adam Mickiewicz University,

Dziegielowa 27, 60-680 Poznan, Poland – zbzw@amu.edu.pl

The relief of Poland is greatly diversified, from high mountains in the southern part of the country to
coastal plains in the north. This creates favourable conditions for designing a map of landform
geodiversity. Landform geodiversity describes landscape complexity from the geomorphological point
of view and evaluates all morphogenetic patterns of different types of relief. The identification of
landform geodiversity in Poland includes the indication of features (morphogenetic zones, relief types,
sets of landforms, single landforms) which are worth preserving and protecting (Cañadas, Flaño 2007,
Kostrzewski 1998, Kozlowski 1997, Zwolinski 2004). These features should be exceptional and
unique in morphometric, morphographic, morphogenetic and morphochronological terms.
The procedure of designing a map of landform geodiversity in Poland was based on the assumption
that a modern landform was reflected by:
hypsometric contrasting
the degree of tectonic and denudational fragmentation of the relief, and
the state of relief preservation as an effect of the natural land cover or its transformation as a
result of a changing land use.
These above three conditions allow composing three maps that are the framework for the construction
of a map of landform geodiversity. These three layers are:
a map of landform energy – created by a numerical transformation of a digital elevation model
(DEM) of 30-m resolution derived from the SRTM-3 mission,
a map of landform fragmentation – created manually as the author’s creative study (Starkel
1997),
a map of contemporary landform preservation – created by digital postprocessing of the
CORINE Land Cover database for the year 2000 (EEA 2004).
Therefore landform geodiversity can be recorded as follows:
LE LF SP
GDL ,
T
where:
GDL – geodiversity of landform,
LE – local elevation or relative elevation,
LF – landform fragmentation (segmentation),
SP – state of contemporary relief preservation (natural vs man-made), and
T – evolution of the relief over time
 A five-degree scale of geodiversity was applied to each of the above three maps (Fig. 1). Thus:
1. map of landform energy:
a) the category of very high geodiversity (violet) – 5 points: local elevation of more than
50 m
b) the category of high geodiversity (green) – 4 points: local elevation between 25 and
50m,
c) the category of medium geodiversity (red) – 3 points: local elevation between 10 and
25 m,
d) the category of low geodiversity (yellow) – 2 points: local elevation between 2 and 10
m, and
e) the category of very low geodiversity (blue) – 1 point: local elevation between 0 and 2
m,
2. map of landform fragmentation:
a) the category of very high geodiversity (very dark brown with diagonal grid) – 5
points: high-mountain relief transformed by glacial and periglacial processes, with
arêtes and gullies,
b) the category of high geodiversity (dark brown with plain grid) – 4 points: medium and
low mountains and high foothills, a dense network of both valleys and ridges, ridges
of end moraines densely fragmented in the lakeland belt, linear tectonic and
denudation thresholds with steep slopes as well as high and precipitous (often also
densely incised) scarps of gorges and cliffs,
c) the category of medium geodiversity (brown with left-diagonal lines) – 3 points: the
elevated fragments of uplands, low foothills, and loess plateaux usually fragmented by
a dense network of gullies, young-glacial morainic plateaux within the limits of the
Pomeranian Stage, low tectonic and denudation thresholds as well as cliffs and deeper
river gorges,
d) the category of low geodiversity (light brown with right-diagonal lines) – 2 points:
intramontane basins, stretches of low uplands, plateaux with Pleistocene cover, poorly
fragmented loess plateaux, young-glacial morainic plateaux within stages older than
the Pomeranian Stage and compact fields of inland dunes, scarps of varying genesis,
and
e) the category of very low geodiversity (white) – 1 point: valley floors (margins of river
terraces were omitted), sandy plains often of an outwash origin (sometimes with
single dunes), old-glacial morainic plateaux, and coastal plains,

A B C
Fig. 1 Entry maps to geoinformation analysis – A: map of landform energy, B: map of landform fragmentation,
C: map of contemporary landform preservation; for explanation see text
 3. map of contemporary landform preservation:
a) the category of very high geodiversity (green) – 5 points: a very high level of relief
preservation; the morphological surface is the least transformed by morphogenetic
processes and almost untouched by man-made processes,
b) the category of high geodiversity (blue) – 4 points: a high level of relief preservation;
areas sporadically affected by morphogenetic processes with a slight contribution of
man-made processes,
c) the category of medium geodiversity (yellow) – 3 points: a medium level of relief
preservation as a result of both morphogenetic and man-made processes,
d) the category of low geodiversity (red) – 2 points: a poor level of relief preservation
indicating substantial changes in the relief as a result of human activity, and
e) the category of very low geodiversity (light blue) – 1 point: a very poor level of relief
preservation, i.e. a complete transformation of the relief by man, the transformation
being usually irreversible.
The map of landform geodiversity was created via a geoinformation analysis of the overlay of the
three maps: of landform energy, landform fragmentation and contemporary landform preservation,
each of them featuring five classes of geodiversity. These qualitative classes were assigned
quantitative values from 5 to 1, respectively. The overlay analysis gave 13 classes in range from 3 to
15 points. To adjust this wide class scale of synthetic map to the five classes of three analytical maps,
the 13 classes were reclassified into 5 classes that were assigned the following descriptions:
class 1: very high landform geodiversity (brown) – point totals from 13 to 15,
class 2: high landform geodiversity (orange) – point totals from 10 to 12,
class 3: medium landform geodiversity (yellow) – point totals from 7 to 9,
class 4: low landform geodiversity (green) – point totals from 4 to 6, and
class 5: very low landform geodiversity (red) – a point total equal to 3.

A B
Fig. 2. Map of landform geodiversity – A: 15 classes, B: 5 classes; for explanation see text
 The landforms of Poland are dominated by two classes, namely those of low (54.5%) and medium
(39.3%) geodiversity. Jointly they take up nearly 95% of the country’s area, embracing mainly upland,
old-glacial and young-glacial landscapes. Landforms of high geodiversity (6%) spread mostly in the
mountain ranges of the Carpathians, the Sudeten and the Holy Cross Mts. and the highest hills of the
Krakow-Czestochowa Jurassic Upland and Roztocze, as well as the terminal moraines of Warta Stadial
and Pomeranian Stage. The class of very high landform geodiversity (0.06%) extends only in the area
of Alpine fold mountains – the Tatras. Quarries, mine-industrial areas and major urban centres are
classed as displaying very low landform geodiversity (0.01%). The map of landform geodiversity is
mostly a map of relief energy, but it is worth emphasizing that its informative content was markedly
enriched with details from the map of landform fragmentation, best visible in the course of most river
valleys. In turn, the map of landform preservation contributed the most to the identification of
landscapes with man-made types of landform.

References
Cañadas S.E. & Flaño, P.R. (2007) – Geodiversity: Concept, Assessment and Territorial Aplication.
The case of Tiermes-Caracena (Soria). Boletín de la A.G.E. N.º 45, 389-393.
EEA [European Environment Agency] (2004) – CORINE Land Cover 2000. The European Topic
Centre Land Use and Spatial Information. Bellaterra (Barcelona), Spain. On-line: http://
terrestrial.eionet.europa.eu/CLC2000.
Kostrzewski A. (1998) – Georoznorodnosc rzezby jako przedmiot badan geomorfologii. In: Pekala K.
(ed.) – Glowne kierunki badan geomorfologicznych w Polsce, IV Zjazd Geomorfologow Polskich,
UMCS, Lublin, 11-16.
Kozłowski S. (1997) – Prognoza ochrony georoznorodnosci w Polsce. Przeglad Geologiczny, 5, 489–
496.
Starkel L. (1998) – Mapa fragmentacji rzezby. MS, Archive of the State Geological Institute,
Warszawa.
Zwolinski Zb. (2004) – Geodiversity. In: Goudie A.S. (ed.) – Encyclopedia of Geomorphology, Vol. 1,
Routledge, 417-418.

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