No abstract

The necessity to divide the analysed area into basic elements, regardless of the administrative division (cells or pixels, also called primary fields), and use them to prepare thematic maps emerged as early as by the end of the 19th century. The automation of map development processes brought a new approach to the function of cells, which made them a carrier that facilitates information processing, and presenting the results of analyses in the form of studies that very often function only in spatial information systems or on the Internet. Cells are currently used to conduct a series of advanced spatial analyses in practically all areas of application. The aim of the presented research was to analyse the influence of the shape and size of cells on the terrain classification results for the purposes of developing military passability maps. The research used the automatic terrain classification method, based on calculating the index of passability, calculated for cells of square, triangular, and hexagonal shapes and of different sizes, ranging from 100 m to 10,000 m. Indices of passability were determined basing on parameters derived from land cover elements that exist in the area of each of the adopted cells. Because of the fact that passability maps are mainly developed for military purposes, the study used a standardised vector spatial database-VMap Level 2. The studies have demonstrated that, if the surface areas of cells are identical, their shapes do not have a significant influence on the resulting passability map. The authors have also determined the sizes of cells that should be adopted for developing passability maps on various levels of accuracy, and, as a consequence, for being used on various levels of command of military troops.

No abstract

Detecting land cover changes requires timely and accurate information, which can be assured by using remotely sensed data and Geographic Information System(GIS). This paper examines spatiotemporal trends in land cover changes in the Polish Baltic coastal zone, especially the urbanisation, loss of agricultural land, afforestation, and deforestation. The dynamics of land cover change and its impact were discussed as the major findings. The analysis revealed that land cover changes on the Polish Baltic coast have been consistent throughout the 1990–2018 period, and in the consecutive inventories of land cover, they have changed faster. As shown in the research, the area of agricultural land was subject to significant change, i.e., about 40% of the initial 8% of the land area in heterogeneous agriculture was either developed or abandoned at about equal rates. Next, the steady growth of the forest and semi-natural area also changed the land cover. The enlargement of the artificial surface was the third observed trend of land cover changes. However, the pace of land cover changes on the Baltic coast is slightly slower than in the rest of Poland and the European average. The region is very diverse both in terms of land cover, types of land transformation, and the pace of change. Hence, the Polish national authorities classified the Baltic coast as an area of strategic intervention requiring additional action to achieve territorial cohesion and the goals of sustainable development.

In this article, we discuss issues concerning the development of detailed passability maps, which are used in the crisis management process and for military purposes. The paper presents the authorial methodology of the automatic generation of these maps with the use of high-resolution digital elevation models (DEMs) acquired from airborne laser scanning (light detection and ranging (LIDAR)) and photogrammetric data obtained from unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) measurements. The aim of the article is to conduct a detailed comparison of these models in the context of their usage in passability map development. The proposed algorithm of map generation was tested comprehensively in terms of the source of the used spatial data, the resolution, and the types of vehicles moving in terrain. Tests were conducted on areas with a diversified landform, with typical forms of relief that hinder vehicle movement (bluffs and streams). Due to the huge amount of data to be processed, the comprehensive analysis of the possibilities of using DEMs in different configurations of pixel size was executed. This allowed for decreasing the resolution of the model while maintaining the appropriate accuracy properties of the resulting passability map. The obtained results showed insignificant disparities between both sources of used DEMs and demonstrated that using the model with the 2.5 m pixel size did not significantly degrade the accuracy of the passability maps, which has a huge impact on their generation time.