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The Western Bieszczady mountains are an example of a region of Poland whose population suffered extremely heavily from the effects of wartime and post-war migrations linked to political repression. In 1944-1947 and later in 1951, from more than 100 villages in the region that had existed since the 15th and 16th centuries, approximately 90% of the total number of inhabitants were forcibly relocated -chiefly ethnic Ruthenians (Boykos). The scale in time and space, and the consequences for the landscape, of the natural and socioeconomic processes taking place there over the next 70 years have proved remarkable on even a European scale. The diversity of the former human activity, followed by a combination of abiotic and biotic renaturalisation processes and secondary human pressure, has led to the creation of unique spatial units. The main aim of this article is to address problems relating to the definition and classification of the contemporary landscape of the areas permanently abandoned by human populations in the Western Bieszczady, through the lens of selected conceptual perspectives of other researchers. Deliberations also covered the memory of the subject landscape in the material and information layers (structural and functional continuum, sustainability of spatial units, time in the sense of the historical evolution of landscapes).

The Department of Geomorphology and Hydrology of Mountains and Uplands in Kraków was established in November 1953 by Professor Mieczysław Klimaszewski. Its first task was to act as lead partner in detailed geomorphological mapping. Parallel with the mapping efforts, studies developed in two directions: (1) the evolution of relief during the Quaternary, based mainly on studies of sediments carried out in cooperation with other disciplines, where the greatest attention was turned to the role of the Holocene period before and after the Neolithic evolution; (2) present-day geomorphic processes based mainly on the monitoring of the circulation of water and mineral matter by experimental field stations. Joint studies on the palaeoenvironment and present-day processes played an important role in understanding the evolution of relief, in the forecasting of future changes, and in its practical evaluation. The concept of rational land use was developed based on the evaluation of the Carpathian landscape. Furthermore, our interest in the geomorphology of mountain areas pushed us to cooperate with countries carrying out studies in European mountains, to organise the Carpatho-Balcan Geomorphological Commission, and later to send expeditions to Mongolia (1974Mongolia ( -1980 and India (since 1983), as well as to organise international commissions and projects related to INQUA and PAGES.

The cessation of most human activities resulting from post-World War II expulsions and forced displacements in Central Europe triggered massive land cover transformation in mountainous areas. However, many pre-War traces of past landscapes have survived-imprinted in microtopography-in permanently abandoned villages. Currently, they constitute unique cultural heritage of communities no longer in existence.Our main goal was therefore to reconstruct a lost cultural landscape of mountain villages abandoned after World War II (WWII). The case study area comprised three such villages located in southern Poland, two in the Carpathians and one in the Sudetes. We used the national airborne light detection and ranging (LiDAR) dataset combined with archival cadastral maps and field survey to detect man-made microtopographic features related to past boundaries, road network, agriculture and buildings and to interpret them in the landscape context. We demonstrated that the pre-War human footprint left in relief was shaped largely by past landownership divisions, land use and environmental constraints (related to lithology, soils and topography). Our secondary goal was to assess the value and application opportunities of LiDAR in reconstructing past landscapes. We showed that 38-70% of non-natural parcel boundaries and 65-79% of roads marked on mid-19th-century cadastral maps are still detectable using LiDAR. Therefore, we argue that the past landscape pattern, originating in late Middle Ages and subsequently transformed prior to WWII, remains well preserved in the relief and that LiDAR is an effective tool to reconstruct a past landscape of mountain villages abandoned after WWII. We also confirmed that customized LiDAR visualizations are more informative than ready-to-use shaded digital elevation models (DEMs), in particular when integrated with cadastral and field-based data. We conclude that the greatest advantage of LiDAR is the capacity to provide a landscape context for isolated traces of past human activity, allowing for the reconstruction of entire spatial patterns and interrelationships developed by past societies.

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