Relief as an important factor in determining priority landscapes: a case study on Polish landscape parks

The practical problems of implementing the Regulation on Landscape Audits (European Landscape Convention, ELC) in Poland are discussed through the topic of landscape relief, on an example of landscape classification of three of Poland’s landscape parks. In the existing landscape typologies, various criteria are proposed, in which relief is usually considered to be one of the leading components. The study was carried out for the purposes of the Landscape Parks Conservation Plans, based on a comparison of the method under the Principles of Landscape Audits and the authors’ method. The results indicate that the landscape types set out in the regulation insuficiently take relief into account, leading to omitting the local specific nature of the terrain. The essential attributes of the terrain in the analysed parks are the morphometry of relief and its genesis. Relief helps to determine the landscape types that are more related to the terrain.