Spatial context of urbanization: Landscape pattern and changes between 1950 and 1990 in the Warsaw metropolitan area, Poland

This paper reports on the changes in the spatial structure of landscape in the years 1950–1990 within the Warsaw metropolitan area. The analysis was aimed at identification of (a) the influence of the distance from the center of the city and from the transport routes on the values of landscape metrics, (b) changes in time of the landscape metrics of forests and built-up areas, (c) the influence of habitats, transportation network and the distance from the center on the directions and intensity of urban growth. Several landscape metrics were chosen to describe the landscape pattern (spatial share, mean patch size, patch size coefficient of variance, mean shape index, mean nearest neighbor distance, mean proximity index, and interspersion and juxtaposition index). The majority of changes in land cover took place in the years 1950–1970, but relations between landscape metrics and the distance from the center of Warsaw as well as from the transport routes, had a persistent character over the entire period studied. The influence of the habitat differentiation (expressed in categories of potential natural vegetation) in land cover is relatively unimportant in the vicinity of the city center and in the direct neighborhood of roads, while it would become the dominating factor in the periphery. The landscape metrics enable the description of the spatial regularities and trends, and constitute useful indirect indicators of the impact of urbanization on cultural (rural) landscape and of the general ecosystem disturbance.