Meeting of the COST Action FireLinks in Kraków (Poland)

Faculty of Forestry University of Agriculture, Krakow

1 -3 of September  2022

This meeting aims to gather scientists and practitioners dealing with issues in the field of preventing fires and their effects in natural and anthropogenic areas with elements of ecological engineering.

We hope this Meeting will provide an excellent opportunity to present research results and to discuss current trends in fire related sciene, as well as to create a platform for exchanging experiences at the interface between theory and practice.

Preliminary schedule:

01.09.2022 – 1 day at the Faculty of Forestry in Krakow

+ visitnig Soil Museum muzeumgleb – Centrum Edukacji Gleboznawczej – Muzeum Gleb

02.09.2022

8:00 – 17 field trip  in collaboration with Forestry Department in Kraków and State Forest in Poland.

– Marcin Pietrzykowski and Bartlomiej Woś

This trip take you to the recovering forest ecosystem after biggest fire (about 9,000 ha in total) in Central Europe after World War II in Rudziniec Forest Inspectorate District (GPS – 50.35364017703595, 18.409414567785486). The trip take you through the problematic, large scale disturbance of forest ecosystems, rehabilitation efforts undertaken and scientific based solution developed. We will discuss the effects of the fires on ecosystems, soil properties and organic matter recovery after fire in relation to different tree species used for reforestation. We also present the ongoing research project on the Rudziniec post-fire site: “Dynamic and stabilization of developed SOM (soil organic matter) on degraded sites in different scenarios with primary and secondary succession and tree species influence”.

More information about realized studies on Rudziniec post-fire site in:

Woś, B., Józefowska, A., Likus-Cieślik, J., Chodak, M., Pietrzykowski, M. 2021. Effect of tree species and soil texture on the carbon stock, macronutrient content and physicochemical properties of regenerated post‐fire forest soils. Land Degradation & Development 32(18), 5227-5240. https://doi.org/10.1002/ldr.4104

Świątek, B., Pietrzykowski, M. 2021. Soil factors determining the fine-root biomass in soil regeneration after a post-fire and soil reconstruction in reclaimed post-mining sites under different tree species. CATENA 204, 105449. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.catena.2021.105449

Chodak, M., Sroka, K., Woś, B., Pietrzykowski, M. 2022. Chemical and microbial properties of post-mining and post-fire soils afforested with different tree species. Applied Soil Ecology 171, 104321. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apsoil.2021.104321

Woś, B., Chodak, M., Józefowska, A., Pietrzykowski, M. 2022. Influence of tree species on carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus stocks and stoichiometry under different soil regeneration scenarios on reclaimed and afforested mine and post-fire forest sites. Geoderma 415, 115782. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoderma.2022.115782

• coffee and lunch in the field

03.09.2022

8:00 – 16 field trip  in collaboration with Forestry Department in Kraków

The conference field trip will be to opencast sand mine sites in Szczakowa, located in the Upper Silesia region, southern Poland (GPS – 50.251924, 19.434996). The open-strip mining resulted in about 3500 ha disturbed area with an excavated depth of 5–25 m, which have been progressively reclaimed and reforested according to reclamation technologies that have been varied over time. We will discuss about impact of mining on the environment,  and the processes of ecosystems development from point “zero” after radical mining disturbances.

More information about Szczakowa post-mining site in:

Pietrzykowski, M., Krzaklewski, W. 2007. Soil organic matter, C and N accumulation during natural succession and reclamation in an opencast sand quarry (southern Poland). Archives of Agronomy and Soil Science 53, 473-483. https://doi.org/10.1080/03650340701362516

Chodak, M., Pietrzykowski, M., Niklińska, M. 2009. Development of microbial properties in a chronosequence of sandy mine soils. Applied Soil Ecology 41(3), 259-268. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apsoil.2008.11.009

Pietrzykowski, M., Gruba, P., Sproull, G. 2017. The effectiveness of Yellow lupine (Lupinus luteus L.) green manure cropping in sand mine cast reclamation. Ecological Engineering, 102, 72–79. doi:10.1016/j.ecoleng.2017.01.026

Woś, B., Pietrzykowski, M. 2020. Characteristics of technogenic soils developed from Neogene and Quaternary sediments substrate on reclaimed sulphur and sand extraction mine sites. Soil Science Annual 71(4), 344-351. https://doi.org/10.37501/soilsa/126996