АУТОР / AUTHOR(S): Michał Sobala 
DOI: 10.46793/CSGE5.04MS
САЖЕТАК / ABSTRACT:
Landscape changes are an inevitable process. However, the dynamics and magnitude of these changes have increased worldwide since the 19th century, accelerating after the Second World War. As a result, many traditional landscapes have deteriorated rapidly.
While in intensively used areas traditional landscapes have been completely wiped out, in extensively used areas they gradually evolve into afforested, restored, or semi-natural ones. This stems from progressive land abandonment that in temperate zone results in reforestation, and usually in the loss of some natural and cultural values. This, in turn, contributes actions designed to protect traditional landscapes. The basis for these protection activities should be reconstructing traditional landscapes’ historical state, based on different data sources. The sources of this knowledge are mainly archival cartographical materials. What is more, some elements of traditional elements have been preserved until the present and could also be a source of knowledge on past landscapes and historical land use.
In this study, the problems of traditional landscape reconstruction will be discussed based on studies conducted in the Polish Carpathians. In this area, the disappearance of the traditional landscape of the seasonal mountain economy is observed mainly as a consequence of land abandonment and is connected with a “forest transition” typical of mountain areas in many developed countries.
Although it is usually necessary to establish the current and historical state for effective landscape protection, determining the historical range and features of the traditional landscape of seasonal mountain economy in the Polish Carpathians is subject to a large degree of uncertainty. The various modern and archival cartographical materials available for this area could provide different results, which are often incomplete. There is only fragmentary information about the landscape in some of the time periods for which archival materials have preserved, and what was in between is only a matter of the researcher’s interpretation. Therefore, knowledge on the historical landscape state is only residual, and the interpretation of available materials gives only a certain idea of the past, meaning it is impossible to determine how close this idea is to its true historical state.
КЉУЧНЕ РЕЧИ / KEYWORDS:
traditional landscape; land abandonment; landscape reconstruction; archival maps; retrogressive method