Geographia Polonica (1986) vol. 52
Phytoindication methods in landscape planning and management
Geographia Polonica (1986) vol. 52, pp. 89-100 | 
Full text
Abstract
The recent fast development of processes of' industrialization and urbanizationwhich brings about far-reaching structural changes in geographical space makes usseek the most optimal solutions in landscape planning and management. On theone hand, such solutions must protect still existing natural areas whose share inthe total area is progressively decreasing and aim at making the anthropogenicimpact on the environment as limited as possible, and, on the other, they musttake into account dynamic changes of biotopes' characteristics and, thus, determinethe strength and pace of degradation of the environment under the influence ofintensifying man's activity. To work out a concept which would meet these postulates,it is necessary to have such methods which would make it possible, in a short time,to obtain as many data on the investigated environment as possible, and especiallythose which characterize potential biotic values of habitats. This makes geographersface new methodological tasks as todate research on the natural environmentemploying field-laboratory methods requires high expenditure of work and is verytime-consuming, and the results obtained from this research not always give fullcharacteristics of habitats' potential values. Therefore, the search for new methodicalsolutions should be expanded to other branches of science dealing with research onthe natural environment, and primarily to different biological sciences. The basis forworking out a new method of landscape research should be provided by scientificachievements obtained in those branches.The aim of this study is to present one of the methods of research on thenatural environment which is of an interdisciplinary character, i.e. plant bioindication(phytoindication) which excellently supplements methods traditionally employedin landscape planning and modelling. The analysis presented in this study includesresults of Polish studies with particular regard to results obtained on the basis ofa method which is even more broadly employed in landscape research in Poland,namely, the Ellenberg method (1950, 1952, 1974, 1979).
[m.degor@twarda.pan.pl], Institute of Geography and Spatial Organization Polish Academy of Sciences, Twarda 51/55, 00‑818 Warszawa, Poland