The “Landscape Act,” which broadens the framework of landscape protection activities included within the European Landscape Convention, was adopted in Poland in 2015 and requires local authorities to conduct a landscape audit in all voivodeships every 20 years. According to the guidelines, the first stage of the audit includes the identification of landscapes currently occurring within each voivodeship followed by an assessment of their condition and value. The completion of the aforementioned processes is essential for proper management of landscapes currently located in regions of exceptional natural and cultural value, identified in the Landscape Act as “priority landscapes.”
The Kazimierz Landscape Park (KLP), which is one of the most valuable protected areas of this rank in Poland in terms of natural, cultural and physiognomic measures, was selected as a research area. This paper presents the method of delimitation of landscapes occurring within the KLP borders based on the system of basic landscape units (BLUs), as well the assessment of cultural ecosystem services (CES) potential within individual landscapes of the KLP, with the purpose of their evaluation and valorisation.
In the first step, 591 BLUs were delimited within the boundaries of the KLP and each unit was assigned to a specific subtype. In total, 13 landscape subtypes were identified. In the second step, three groups of CES were assessed within the BLUs including physical intellectual and spiritual interactions. Two methods were used in order to assess the CES potential of all BLUs: 1) the Expert Valuation Method for objective services and 2) sociological methods for subjective services. Results are presented as a set of diagrams, graphs and choropleth maps.
The results of this study show that the CES potential may vary in BLUs that belong to the same landscape subtype within different parts of the research area. This applies particularly to cultural landscapes. These findings may provide a basis for formulating approaches to enable, preserve or enrich the potential of CES in the identified landscapes.
Keywords: cultural ecosystem services, ecosystem services assessment, services of landscape systems, protected areas, landscape park
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