The recent increase in urban areas has stimulated landscape urbanization. One of the ways to study this process is an analysis based on the structure of land cover. The aim of this paper is to assess the intensity of the urban landscape on the basis of the CORINE in the seven largest metropolitan areas in Poland and in the Ruhr Metropolis in Germany. To this end, an urban landscape intensity indicator (ULII) was used based on Corine Land Cover at three levels of detail: the metropolitan area, municipalities and hexagons. There are similarities in landscape structure in areas with similar origin (industrial function) and spatial organization (mono- and polycentric agglomerations). The landscape of the Upper Silesia-Zagłębie Metropolis differs from the landscape of other metropolitan areas in Poland and simultaneously shows similarities to the landscape of the Ruhr Metropolis. The results of the ULII also revealed a dependency: the dominance of rural and transitional landscapes in a majority of the study areas. Urban landscapes occur only in the central zones of the metropolitan areas. This proves that determining the range of a metropolitan area in terms of landscape factors is different from doing it with formal or legal ones.

Landscape permanence is understood as the temporal extent of the dominance of a given type of landscape, expressed by the temporal continuity of its use. This issue, already being the subject of much research, is important in proper landscape protection and management. In this paper, spatial landscape persistence and persistence of particular landscape types are presented for the Ogrodzieniec municipality, Częstochowa Upland, Poland. In addition, a background of landscape types and their changes in the Częstochowa Upland has been presented. Based on current and historical topographic maps, landscape types (forest, agriculture, settlement, fortified and industrial) were identified for the following studied periods: 1831, 1944, 1965, 2007, 2014 and 2020. After overlapping the maps, the persistence index was calculated, and isochrones of landscape persistence were determined. The term ‘landscape isochrones’ introduced in this paper is defined as theoretical lines of equal landscape time duration (iso-persistence line). The results show that the landscape of Ogrodzieniec can be considered to be persistent. The largest area of the municipality is occupied by the most permanent landscapes dating from before 1831. The most persistent is the fortified landscape. The method applied is important for planning sustainable development of the region, which is currently under intense tourist and economic pressure.

The dynamic development of tourist infrastructure can damage the value of a landscape. Thus, the identification of the impact of tourist infrastructure on landscape is an important issue in the context of the limitation of further degradation of landscape. The purpose of this article is to assess the influence of tourist facilities in the mountain landscape of the Silesian Beskids in terms of both spatial and physiognomic aspects. The impact is assessed by using an index of landscape load with tourist infrastructure (landscape load index – LLI) developed by author. The index is based on calculation of the saturation of landscape with cubature, area and linear elements of tourist infrastructure corrected by a coefficient describing the degree of their impact on the landscape. The results indicate the spatial diversity of the landscape load and thus of the transformation of a landscape towards a tourist one. The presented method has an application value in the forecasting and programming of the tourist infrastructure with respect to landscape values.

In many mountainous regions, ongoing reforestation leads to the permanent shrinkage of traditional landscapes connected with past human activity. Tourism is often perceived as a measure for the protection of traditional landscapes. Nevertheless, there is still a lack of in-depth studies exploring the connection between mountain glade conservation and tourism development. This paper aimed to determine whether tourism development can prevent the reforestation of temperate mountain glades and to assess the extent of its influence on traditional glade landscapes. Based on the example of the Western Beskids (Poland), we investigated the change in the range of glades in relation to tourist development, which has not been analysed until now. Cartographic analyses were used to examine how the landscape has changed since 1983. To determine the influence of tourist development on the landscape, the tourism landscape footprint (TLF) index was calculated. Two trends were detected: reforestation in glades that are touristically utilized and the gradual tourist development of the remnants of traditional landscapes within preserved non-forested areas. The study reveals that despite tourism, reforestation within glades is continuing, and simultaneously, the share of tourist elements in the shrinking glades is increasing. In the case of areas intensively used for tourism, the traditional landscape is disappearing as it is transformed into a tourist landscape. Further studies are necessary to assess the level of tourism development that will provide traditional landscape conservation in accordance with the principles of sustainable development.

Archaeological landscapes are crucial to understanding the evolution, form and meaning of cultural landscape. This paper presents a complex analysis of the archaeological landscape and its temporal and spatial changes, with particular reference to the last 200 years, using the example of a megalithic landscape with barrows in Wietrzychowice (Poland). The aim of the research was to determine the changes in the structure and function of the landscape and to identify the processes that caused these changes. A complex Model of Archaeological Landscape Analysis (MALA) was proposed which presents the current archaeological landscape and its historical changes both graphically and descriptively. The literature was studied and cartographic research was conducted, and this was supplemented by field visits. The results allowed us to distinguish 6 stages of the life-history of the analysed landscape. The megalithic landscape of Wietrzychowice represents a genetically heterogeneous, homotonous in terms of land cover, reversed (chronologically younger landscape replaced by a chronologically older landscape) stratigraphic type. The most persistent landscape type is the forest. The main processes occurring there were erosion, deforestation, afforestation, barrow construction, excavation and reconstruction. The functions changed from ecological to touristic. The visual role of the barrows as the dominant features of the landscape has varied. This method can be used in landscape protection and planning and in landscape education.

This article proposes a method of the assessment of distribution of tourist facilities. The main aim of presented study is to assess a spatial density of tourist elements. The evaluation of the distribution of tourist facilities in the landscape allows to indicate overloaded areas. The second purpose is the proposition of an indicator measuring the landscape saturation of tourist facilities, i.e. density index developed by the authors. The index, referred to river basin, is based on the ratio of the area of the tourist facilities to the total area of the unit. For the purposes of calculation, the authors developed a framework for the classification of tourist facilities based on its spatial character. The method was examined in the Silesian Beskid mountain range and can be applied in similar mountain areas.