More new FORECOM publications available online
November 7, 2018
Since the end of the project, several new papers has been published.
A volume of the Regional Environmental Change journal has been published including two papers resulting from FORECOM research:
Kozak, J., Gimmi, U., Houet, T. et al. Current practices and challenges for modelling past and future land use and land cover changes in mountainous regions.
Price, B., Kaim, D., Szwagrzyk, M. et al., Legacies, socio-economic and biophysical processes and drivers: the case of future forest cover expansion in the Polish Carpathians and Swiss Alps.
Moreover, the following papers has been published:
Kolecka, N., Kozak, J., Kaim, D. et al. Understanding farmland abandonment in the Polish Carpathians.
Szwagrzyk M., Kaim D., Price B. et al. Impact of forecasted land use changes on flood risk in the Polish Carpathians.
Ostafin, K., Iwanowski, M., Kozak, J. et al. Forest cover mask from historical topographic maps based on image processing.
Kaim D., Radeloff V.C., Szwagrzyk M. et al. Long-Term Changes of the Wildland–Urban Interface in the Polish Carpathians.
New FORECOM publications available online
October 30, 2016
Recently, a new volume of the Prace Geograficzne journal have been published including papers resulting from FORECOM research.
Bednarczyk B., Kaim D., Ostafin K., Forest cover change or misinterpretation? On dependent and independent vectorisation approaches.
Kolecka N., Dobosz M., Ostafin K., Forest cover change and secondary forest succession since 1977 in Budzów commune, the Polish Carpathians.
Troll M., Ostafin K., Use of late 18th and early 19th century cadastral data to estimate past forest cover change – a case study of Zawoja village.
Gimmi U., Ginzler C., Müller M., Psomas A., Assessing accuracy of forest cover information on historical maps.
FORECOM Guide Book
September 9, 2016
FORECOM Guide Book for practitioners is now available here (polish version only).
FORECOM results presented during the ISPRS Congress, Czech Republic 2016
July 27, 2016
The XXIIIrd ISPRS Congress was organised in Prague, Czech Republic on 12-19 July 2016. The main aim was to bring together all Ph&RS&GIS scientists and specialists from all over the world. The conference programm included an oral presentation based on FORECOM research – "Mapping Secondary Forest Succession on Abandoned Agricultural Land in the Polish Carpathians".
The research also resulted in a new publication by dr. Natalia Kolecka.
FORECOM results presented during AAG Annual Meeting San Fransisco, USA 2016
April 27, 2016
Aim of the 2016 Annual Meeting in San Francisco, organised 29 March - 02 April 2016 in San Francisco, USA brought together more than 9,000 scientists from all over the world, whose interests related to geography, GIS and environment. The conference programm included an oral presentation based on FORECOM research – "Understanding patterns of secondary forest succession on abandoned agricultural land in the Polish Carpathians using airborne laser scanning data".
New FORECOM publications available online
April 27, 2016
Recently, two papers resulting from FORECOM research have been published.
First, by dr Dominik Kaim et al., assessed different methods of land cover and land use reconstruction from historical maps for broad-scale land cover change analysis. They have found that point-based sampling enables efficient and accurate estimation of forest area and change trends. The full paper entitled Broad scale forest cover reconstruction from historical topographic maps is available online.
Second, by professor Jacek Kozak et al., attempted explain the Modifiable Areal Unit Problem (MAUP) with a simple land use change simulation on the example of the Carpathian Mountains in Poland. The full paper entitled Have there been forest transitions? Forest transition theory revisited in the context of the Modifiable Areal Unit Problem is available online.
Forest returns - FORECOM project on the Polish Radio Three
November 16, 2015
"It has changed. It is very different since I moved here years ago". Listen to the radio broadcast on the Polish Radio Three, where the changes on the forest in the Carpathians are shown both from scientific perspective and as percived by local inhabitants. The radio brodcast is available in Polish here.
FORECOM results presented during International Land Use Symposium (ILUS) 2015
November 16, 2015
Aim of the International Land Use Symposium (ILUS) 2015 Recent Trends in Spatial Analysis and Modelling of Settlements and Infrastructure, organised 11-13 November 2015 in Dresden, Germany was to bring together scientists from the fields of spatial sciences, environmental studies, geography, cartography, GIScience, urban planning, architecture, which relate to investigations of settlements and infrastructure. During the conference, a poster based on FORECOM research was presented – „Mapping secondary forest succession on abandoned agricultural land in the Polish Carpathians with LiDAR point clouds”.
New FORECOM publication on secondary forest succession available online
June 25, 2015
We are very happy to inform that new paper by dr Natalia Kolecka and colleagues on secondary forest succession on abandoned agricultural land with LiDAR data has been recently published. The results shows that according to LiDAR data 31.0% of the agricultural land in the Szczawnica commune, PL Carpathians, may currently be experiencing secondary forest succession. The paper Mapping Secondary Forest Succession on Abandoned Agricultural Land with LiDAR Point Clouds and Terrestrial Photography is available online.
Short movie about FORECOM
June 02, 2015
Want to see what is the FORECOM project about? Do not miss the movie...
About FORECOM results on MRI blog
April 15, 2015
About secondary succession and forest cover changes (based on FORECOM results) but in more informal style – Changing mountains on MRI blog.
Internship in Federal Research Institute WSL, Birmensdorf
March 18, 2015
Katarzyna Ostapowicz did the intership in the Project Swiss Partner Federal Research Institute WSL in Birmensdorf, from 13th of February to 13th of March 2013.
Collaboration during her stay has been focused on:
- modelling of past forest cover change during last 150 years with use of different mathematical and statistical methods like GLM, Random Forest and Boots Regression Trees
- development of storylines and then scenarios for future forest changes in the Polish Carpathians with strong relation to the storylines and scenarios of future forest change in the Swiss Alps
- technical aspects of future forest cover change modelling with use of the DynaCLUE approach
She also presented the overview and results of the FORECOM project during the Landscape Ecology research group meeting.
FORECOM & „Society – Environment – Technologies"
January 29-30, 2015
Two groups of PhD students representing different Jagiellonian University faculties took part in the workshop organized in the Institute of Geography and Spatial Management in January. The aim of the workshop was to present the interdisciplinary research project realized by geographers. As a basis for the discussion, the FORECOM project were chosen. During the workshop, the process of long term forest cover change analysis, based on historical maps and satellite image comparison was presented, giving the student an interesting overview of the change detection topic in the environmental research.
FORECOM research in SCIENCE PROJECTor
Novemober 28, 2014
Want to understend why research conducted within FORECOM project is important? Please consult a new edition of SCIENCE PROJECTor – a set of short articles highlighting importance of the science investigation in a nice and attractive form. Our short text Geography and forests – not necessarily a "finger across the map" journey is available there as well.
FORECOM results presented during International LCLUC Regional Science Meeting in Central Europe
October 21, 2014
Aim of the International LCLUC Regional Science Meeting in Central Europe, organised 16-22 October 2014 in Sopron was to provide a multidisciplinary, inter-sectoral and international forum to bring scientists and agencies together to discuss the land-cover and land-use change (LCLUC), its driving forces and impacts with a regional focus on Central Europe. During the conference, a poster based on FORECOM research was presented – „Forest cover change in the Polish Carpathians since the mid-19th century: point-based versus raster-based analysis”.
FORECOM project presented on Information Environment conference in Warsaw
October 20, 2014
Information Environment conference (Środowisko Informacji) was organized by the Polish Ministry of the Environment on the 1-2 October 2014 in Warsaw, Poland in the Copernicus Science Centre. During the conference, scientific projects regarding natural environment were presented and the research related topics were discussed. Katarzyna Ostapowicz and Agnieszka Wypych focused on the topic: "Does the past help us predict the future of the Carpathian forests? New perstectives in analysis and modeling of forest cover changes."
FORECOM research presented on Forum Carpaticum in Lviv
October 10, 2014
3rd Forum Carpaticum - the most important regional conference focused on the Carpathian region was organised 16-18 September 2014 in Lviv, Ukraine. During the conference, FORECOM research outcomes of the uncertainty assessment in historical forest reconstruction were presented - Dominik Kaim showed the work "Long-term forest cover changes in the Polish Carpathians: methodological approach".
Publication on uncertainty in historical forest cover change analysis
September 19, 2014
In September, first paper being a result of research conducted within a project has been published. The paper presents the outcomes of the uncertainty investigation of a long-term forest cover change analysis in the Polish Carpathians (nearly 20,000 km2) and Swiss Alps (nearly 10,000 km2) based on topographic maps. It was published in ‘Quaestiones Geographicae' and is available in open acces on the journal website.
Internship in Federal Research Institute WSL, Birmensdorf
July 25, 2014
Natalia Kolecka did the internship in the Project Swiss Partner Federal Research Institute WSL in Birmensdorf, from 18th of June to 16th of July 2014.
Work performed:
FORECOM Project Annual Meeting and Advisory Board Panel
May 25, 2014
The FORECOM project annual meeting took place at Jagiellonian University, Krakow, on the 20/23 May.
The meeting regarded:
- state of the art in task 3-5
- publications in preparation and new ideas emerging from results in tasks 3-5
- task 6: concept, results, discussion on data issues, comparability of approaches
- towards task 7 and 8: preliminary planning
On the 22 May Advisory Board Panel took place. The following topics were discussed:
- current status of tasks 3-5 – towards historical forest cover data base
- current status of task 6: forest cover change modeling and its drivers; climatic and socio-economic variables
- forest cover change scenarios: information on next steps in tasks 7 and 8
- outlook towards task 9
The post-meeting excursion to Szczawnica commune and the Pieniny Mountains (one of the Polish test sites) on the 23 May gave us a chance to enjoy the view of the beautiful scenery and real examples of forest cover changes in the Polish Carpathians.
FORECOM Project on GEOBIA 2014 Conference in Thessaloniki
May 27, 2014
Forecom Project results were presented during the 5th GEOBIA Conference of 2014, organized 21-24 May 2014 in Thessaloniki, Greece. GEOBIA events bring together the technical and scientific community of remote sensing and environmental sciences, promoting the development of Geographic Object-Based Image Analysis concepts, methods and applications. The details about the conference can be found here.
The poster entitled "Land Abandonment Mapping in the Polish Carpathians" presented preliminary results of the task 5 (Estimates of the current abandonment rate and forest succession using airborne laser scanning (ALS) data).
The high resolution poster is available to download in PDF format:
FORECOM Project on GLP-OSM 2014 Meeting in Berlin
April 01, 2014
Forecom Project background and preliminary results were presented during Global Land Project Open Science Meeting 2014, organized 19-21 March 2014 in Berlin. The presentation entitled "Long-term forest cover changes in the Polish Carpathians and the Swiss Alps: comparison of trajectories and drivers" was a part of the session “Forest cover changes in mountain areas”, chaired by Eric Lambin. The details about the conference can be found at http://www.glp-osm2014.org/.
The full presentation is available to download in PDF format:
FORECOM & „Society – Environment – Technologies"
February 04, 2014
Two seminars for PhD students representing different Jagiellonian University faculties were organized in the Institute of Geography and Spatial Management in January. The seminars aimed to present interdisciplinary research project realized by geographers. As a basis for the workshop and discussion, exemplary results of the FORECOM project were chosen. During the seminar, the process of historical map comparison as well as satellite image implementation in environmental research was discussed. The final part was focused on land use/cover change detection.
FORECOM Project on GLP-OSM 2014 Meeting in Berlin
January 04, 2014
All of those, who are taking part in GLP-OSM 2014 Meeting "Land Transformations: Between Global Challenges and Local Realities" will have a possibility to learn more on the FORECOM Project outcomes.
An oral presentation "Long-term forest cover changes in the Polish Carpathians and the Swiss Alps: comparison of trajectories and drivers" will be shown in March in Berlin.
Internship in Federal Research Institute WSL, Birmensdorf
December 20, 2013
Krzysztof Ostafin did the internship in the Project Swiss Partner Federal Research Institute WSL in Birmensdorf, from 23rd of September to 18th of October 2013.
Work performed:
- presentation of report from Task 3 – Testing the method of automated forest extraction based on HSV colour space transformation and morphological image analysis:
- preprocessing of images (Image Collor Sumarizer)
- preparation of the MatLab script
- parametrizations
- verification of results (comparison with manually vectorised forest mask)
- discussion about error distribution and contributing factors
- discussion about uncertainty areas
- discussion about results of processing various sources
- work on article in mentioned topic
- automatic processing of the 75 sheets Landeskarte der Schweiz in scale 1:25 000
- work on outline comparison methodology of forest cover layers based on different topographic maps (scale, accuracy)
Internship in Federal Research Institute WSL, Birmensdorf
September 15, 2013
Monika Dobosz did the internship in the Project Swiss Partner Federal Research Institute WSL in Birmensdorf, from 15th of July to 9th of August 2013.
Work performed:
- presentation of report from Task 3 – Reconstruction of forest cover based on Dufour Map of Switzerland
- work on outline comparison methodology of forest cover layers based on different topographic maps (scale, accuracy); review of literature in topic of forest cover changes and archive topographic data processing
- research and development of object - based classification of aerial photos (Task 4); review of research and methodology of forest boundary detection on aerial images and LIDAR data (task 4,5) and forest structure analysis on LIDAR data (Task 5)
- studies on possibilities of using satellite radar imagery to obtain information about changes in forest area in the Swiss Alps and the Polish Carpathians; review of research and methodology of forest structure analysis on satellite radar imagery, mainly focused on succesional forest detection and succession stages classification (intermediate secondary forest and initial secondary forest)
Task 3 and Task 4 are complete
July 15, 2013
Task 3 and Task 4 started at the very beginning of the FORECOM project and are complete now.
More information on the results can be found here:
- results of the Task 3 (Reconstruction of forest cover based on historical maps)
- results of the Task 4 (Reconstruction of forest cover changes based on aerial and satellite imagery)
FORECOM project annual meeting
May 25, 2013
The FORECOM project annual meeting took place at WSL, Birmensdorf, on the 21/22 May.
The meeting regarded:
- state of the art of the Task 3 (Reconstruction of forest cover based on historical maps)
- state of the art of the Task 4 (Reconstruction of forest cover changes based on aerial and satellite imagery)
- development of conceptual framework of the Task 5 (Estimates of the current abandonment rate and forest succession using airborne laser scanning (ALS) data)
- development of conceptual framework of the Task 6 (Estimation of climate change and land use contribution to past forest cover change)
FORECOM Opening Conference - programme
February 2, 2013
The full conference program is available to download in PDF format:
FORECOM Opening Conference - hotels and logistics
February 2, 2013
For travel information in Krakow, please consult this webpage:
Tickets for city communication in Krakow could be purchased either in traffic shops (e.g., close to the major stops) or in ticket machines at the stops or in most trams and buses.
FORECOM Opening Conference, 6-8 March 2013, Kraków, Poland - first announcement
October 29, 2012
The Opening Conference of the FORECOM will take place between 6-8 March 2013, at the Institute of Geography and Spatial Management of the Jagiellonian University, 30-387 Kraków, Gronostajowa 7, Poland. We would like to invite scientists working in the Land Change Science to take part in the conference. Participation is free of charge, yet the number of places is strictly limited.
FORECOM has started
July 16, 2012
FORECOM (PSPB 008/2010) – a project awarded in the “Environment” pillar of the Polish Swiss Research Programme – aims therefore to improve understanding of past, present and future forest cover changes in the Swiss Alps and the Polish Carpathians in the context of land use and climate changes. The project will be carried out by research teams from the Institute of Geography and Spatial Management, Jagiellonian University, Poland, and Swiss Federal Research Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL), Research Unit Land Use Dynamics. It started in June, 2012, and will end in May 2016.
← Older Entries
