The aim of the study was to assess spatial variation in the tourism and investment potential of Staszowski County and to indicate possibilities for sustainable development of tourism in the area. The method of synthetic measures was used for the analysis, taking into account 45 features characterizing the tourism and investment space, including tourism assets, the state and protection of the environment, transport accessibility, hotels, eating establishments and supplementary facilities, service and technical infrastructure, population relations, and commune finances. The features were analysed using geostatistical and statistical tools. The analyses, despite certain methodological limitations, indicated that there is still great potential for more sustainable development of tourism in the county. The spatial distribution of the features did not show a tendency to form clusters, but most of them were located in the centre of the study area, in two communes—Staszów and Połaniec. The most attractive commune in terms of tourism and investment was Staszów, with strong tourism assets and a well-developed service and technical infrastructure. This commune, however, has one of the lowest environmental protection indices in the county.

The Natura 2000 is a network of protected areas established in the European Union on the basis of EU Directives. Simultaneously it is the youngest form of protected areas in Poland. Hence conflicts between conservation objectives and opportunities as well as needs of community economic development are quite common. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the tourism and investment potential of Czarnkowsko-Trzcianecki County and determine whether the Natura 2000 network is a factor in increasing the tourism and investment development of the commune or limiting it. We evaluated the tourism and investment potential based on modification of the Gołembski method (i.e., multidimensional comparative analysis) and measured the proportion of the Natura 2000 network in the total area of the commune. The Trzcianka commune was found to have the greatest tourism development and investment potential, but the Wieleń commune was the most attractive in terms of tourism, and Czarnków (municipal commune) was found to have the highest investment attractiveness. Moreover, there was no correlation between the Natura 2000 network and tourism and investment potential of communes. However, these areas had a negative impact on the investment attractiveness of communes, due to socio-economic and technical aspects, which may cause future potential limitation of development.

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In this study, we aimed to investigate the accumulation of airborne trace elements in Lolium multiflorum leaves concerning photosynthetic activity parameters. Five sites for four 28-day series of plant exposition were selected. The concentration of trace elements in leaves was measured after each series, while photosynthetic activity parameters were measured three times during each series. Net photosynthesis rate (PN) and stomatal conductance (gs) were mostly negatively associated with all analyzed trace elements, unlike to CO2 concentrations (Ci). Arsenic was found with opposite trend in two exposure series. The high accumulation of Cd and Pb in plants recorded at two sites was mostly related to lowest PN and gs. Similar tendency for PN was found at sites and series with the highest Cr and Ni content in plants. L. multiflorum revealed a medium-level accumulation of trace elements and a low tolerance of the photosynthetic process to the presence of trace elements in ambient air.

Roads, due to their large spatial scale, significantly affect the landscape, causing numerous and usually irreversible changes. Due to a lack of consensus among various specialists and varying evidence on the extent of the influence of roads, the present study focused on the clarification of the real range of the effect of roads on the environment, especially the landscape structure. The aim of the study was to assess road-effect zones for different types of land use. The existing sections of the European route E30 in the Wielkopolska region (Poland) were selected for the research. Based on buffer analysis, landscape metrics and statistical analysis, such as cluster analysis and changes in mean and variance, the spatial diversity of the landscape and road-effect zone was characterized. The results indicate the spatial diversity of the landscape structure and the range of impact, which depended on the type of land cover. Therefore, to analyze the road-effect zone, it is necessary to take into consideration not only the variable range of impact due to the type of road or the time of exploitation, but also the different types of land use of areas surrounding the road.

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Effective biomonitoring strategies are essential for identifying and assessing the sources and levels of contamination of heavy metal pollutants in urban areas, given their negative impacts on human health and the environment. This study aimed to assess the potential of common weed, Trifolium pratense as a bioindicator of heavy metal contamination in various land uses in urban areas, with a focus on Cd, Cu, Cr, Ni, and Pb. The results have shown that Cr and Ni had high bioconcentration factor (BCF) values in most sites, in comparison with Cu, Cd and Pb. Contamination factor (CF) values varied across all sites. The industrial area and old town sites had the highest translocation factor (TF) values for Cr and Ni, indicating greater transport of these metals from roots to aerial parts of plants. Differences between heavy metals (HMs) according to land use were observed; especially, Pb and Cu were more concentrated in soils than other heavy metals in industrial areas. Overall, these findings suggest that Trifolium pratense is a promising bioindicator for heavy metal contamination in various land uses in urban areas, making it a potentially valuable tool for monitoring heavy metal pollution in cities of the northern hemisphere.