ABSTRACT
The paper presents the results of research on land cover changes in the Błędowska Desert area between 1926 and 2005. The study was based on historical and up-to-date remotely sensed images: aerial photographs from 1926, CORONA satellite photographs from 1968, aerial orthophotos made for LPIS project and high-resolution satellite orthophoto from Ikonos imagery acquired in 2005. The evaluation of land cover changes was done through photo interpretation of images and quantitative analysis in the GIS environment. A rectification of CORONA images was necessary to enable quantitative analysis. A comparison is presented of the correction results achieved with 1st and 2nd order polynomials as well as the rational polynomial method. Geometric accuracy necessary for 1:25000 topographic maps has been achieved using the rational polynomial method. Photo interpretation and the resulting land cover maps of the Błędowska Desert enabled evaluation of land cover changes during the considered 80 years, and a detailed quantitative analysis for the last 40 years. The evaluation of the land cover changes during the last 80 years proves that the Błędowska Desert has being overgrowing. Today the area is more comparable to a forest than to the unique desert area in Europe as it was 40 years ago. The vegetation appeared here in a natural way before World War II and expanded in the late 1960s. But, succession accelerated in the last 40 years, mainly because of human influence.