Historical gully erosion with loess areas of SE Poland – Natural conditions and human impact

Resumen del trabajo presentado al IV International Symposium on Gully Erosion, celebrado en la Universidad Pública de Navarra del 17 al 19 de septiembre de 2007.Gullies constitute one of the most characteristic elements of loess relief in SE Poland. Particularly dense net of permanent gullies – in some places more than 10 km?km-2 – appears in areas of specific conditions of abiotic environment which favour gully erosion. However, it is generally believed that these conditions were not a natural landscape (Bork 1989, Schmitt et al. 2006, Vanwalleghem et al. 2003). Only after the devastation of the natural plant cover of mixed and deciduous forests, resulting from agricultural expansion, the erosion began to develop dynamically. The purpose of this article was to determine the influence of natural factors and human activity on the processes of gully erosion (density of permanent gullies). The existing gully systems were examined and the achieved results give an idea about the processes taking place in the past.Part of the work reported in this paper was financially supported from the funds for the science in the years 2006-2008 as a research project (2 PO4E 034 30)