The Chair’s studies are conducted in continental Europe, Iceland, Svalbard, Asia, Africa, S. America and King George Island and include:
- Structure and functioning of landscape systems, landscape natural and anthropogenic changes, theory and methods of landscape typology and regionalization, biodiversity and its determinants, soil science, city ecology.
- Fluvial, slope, aeolian, glacial, periglacial and littoral geomorphic processes and landforms, geomorphological mapping, soil erosion and multidirectional anthropopressure.
- Mathematical and ecohydrological modeling of hydrological processes at different spatial and temporal scales; forecasting and retrodication of hydrological processes; protection against drought and floods.
- Causes and environmental effects of climatic changes, atmospheric circulation, climate of urbanized areas, extreme meteorological phenomena, estimation and protection of atmospheric resources, local climate and the application climatology.
Department of Geoecology
Andrzej Harasimiuk, Ph.D. (habil.) – department head
Alina Gerlée, Ph.D.
Research interests: Landscape potential for animal movement (ecological corridors, landscape permeability and cohesion, barriers), land use changes and their environmental effects on natural and protected areas, biodiversity and nature protection, spatial analysis in Open Source GIS (QGIS) – landscape metrics
Ewa Malinowska, Ph.D.
Research interests: Geoecology, urban ecology, ecosystem services, natural and anthropogenic landscape’s transformation, environmental protection, anthropogenic transformation of the soils.
Jan Matuszkiewicz, Professor
Research interests: Geoecology; geobotany; forest ecology; maps of potential and actual vegetation; vegetational landscapes; forest regeneration in post-agricultural lands; ancient and recent post-agricultural forests; Ellenberg ecological indicator values; requirements for Vaccinium myrtillus recolonization; biogeographical characteristic of hemiboreal and nemoral eutrophic deciduous forests; Natura 2000 habitats.
Ewa Mierzwiak, Eng.
Iwona Szumacher, Ph.D.
Research interests: Geoecology, urban ecology, urban ecosystem services, land use changes and their environmental effects on soils in a local scale, geochemistry of landscape.
Maria Zachwatowicz, Ph.D.
Research interests: Landscape ecology (spatial and temporal patterns of landscape change; effects of landscape pattern on species diversity and distribution; the role of cultural monuments and marginal habitats in phytodiversity conservation; social perceptions of landscape; human-environment relationships), nature conservation, biodiversity and environmental policy of the EU, environmental education.
Department of Geomorphology
Ewa Smolska, Ph.D., Associate Professor – department head
Research interests: Geomorphology, soil erosion and fluvial processes, their contemporary dynamic (monitoring) and in the past based on features of sediments, human impact on landforms.
Maciej Dąbski, Ph.D., Associate Professor
Research interests: Photointerpretation of glacial and periglacial landforms; development of contemporary glacial forelands; relative dating of landforms (Schmidt hammer, weathering rind, SEM, lichenometry); Pleistocene periglacial structures and landforms;
Maciej Dłużewski, Ph.D., Associate Professor
Research interests: Analysis of morphology and morphodynamics of aeolian bedforms within hot desert and sandy sea coast, sediment budget within shoreface-beach-dune system and single sand dunes, aeolian sand transport intensity and vertical mas flux profile; fluvial geomorphology in arid and semi-arid mountains, morphodynamics and sediment budget of stream channels; GIS analysis of topography changes based on data from GPS-RTK, TLS, UAS / UAV (Drone)
Dorota Giriat, Ph.D.
Research interests: Environmental change and human impact, fluvial geomorphology – changes in channel morphology over different time scales (spatial analysis in GIS), morphodynamics of river channels (numerical modelling), applied geomorphology: river hydromorphological research, river restoration.
Maria Korotaj-Kokoszczyńska, Ph.D.
Research interests: Analysis of the human-activity impact on morphogenetic processes, in particular, the dynamics of landslide processes developing on the Warsaw and Płock slope.
Elżbieta Rojan, Ph.D. (habil.)
Research interests: Contemporary morphogenetic processes in high mountains, especially slope, glacial and fluvial processes; extreme geomorphological events in mountain areas; the impact of climate change on the natural environment of mountains, especially on the condition of glaciers and permafrost; biogeomorphology; anthropopression in the mountains
Piotr Szwarczewski, Ph.D. (habil.)
Research interests: Human impact record in the natural environment, geoarchaeology, stratigraphy and geochemistry of the Holocene deposits, fluvial geomorphology, river channel changes, archival topographical maps analyses, lake sediments analyses, environmental change due to the climate and human impact.
Irena Tsermegas, Ph.D. (habil.)
Research interests: Contemporary relief changes, human impact on the environment, especially on landforms (e.g. agricultural terracing); structural and morphotectonic evolution of relief.
Urszula Zawadzka-Pawlewska, Ph.D.
Research interests: Geoarchaeology, human impact on landforms, spatial analysis in GIS (R and other Open Source software), statistics, geostatistics, and mathematical modeling, environmental impact assessment.
Department of Hydrology
Artur Magnuszewski, Ph.D., Associate Professor – department head
Research interests: Hydrodynamic modeling of rivers and reservoirs with use of 1D and 2D models. Channel processes and sedimentation in reservoirs. Remote sensing applications in hydrology, SAR Sentinel-1 images use for ice phenomena description on inland waters. Urban floods and flood risk, adaptation to climate change. Ecohydrology studies of Sulejow Reservoir.
Maciej Lenartowicz, Ph.D.
Research interests: Use of GIS tools and spatial data analysis in hydrological research. Mathematical modeling of hydrological processes in the catchment. Monitoring of surface waters. Anthropogenic changes in the water cycle in cities (e.g. urban floods, spatial distribution of heavy rainfalls, soil sealing in urbanized areas). Hydrology of mountain areas.
Maksym Łaszewski, Ph.D.
Research interests: Spatial and seasonal variations of the thermal regime of streams and rivers; human impacts on water quality properties; environmental monitoring and measurement techniques; application of GIS in hydrology and water management; river restoration; aquatic ecology.
Barbara Nowicka, Ph.D.
Research interests: Extreme events, experimental research, mathematical modeling, new measurement methods, limnology (climate changes, human impact, lakes sensitivity, function of lake deposits, lakes morphometry, shore one, hydrophytes coverage).
Urszula Somorowska, Ph.D., Associate Professor
Research interests: Relations between climate and hydrological processes, hydrological extremes in a recent past, links to changing environment and predictions; drought conditions in Poland over the past 60 years, seasonal depletion of soil water resources, changes of river hydrological regimes in climate- and human-influenced catchments; streamflow response to climate variability, wastewater inflow, and sprawling urbanization in heavily modified river catchments; water balance modeling and remote sensing in hydrology.
Jarosław Suchożebrski, Ph.D.
Research interests: Water management; quality of water; ecological status of surface waters; river restoration; water as cause, tool or target of conflicts; application of GIS in hydrology; modeling of hydrological processes
Dariusz Woronko, Ph.D.
Research interests: Water management in the protected areas. Water stress and scarcity within different environments with the emphasis on the relation between natural and human induced processes. Water circulation in the arid areas. The application of GIS in Geography
Department of Climatology
Elwira Żmudzka, Ph.D., Associate Professor – department head
Research interests: Climate changes and variability, their circular conditions and environmental effects, adaptation to climate change, extreme meteorological phenomena and threats in built-up areas, methodological and application topoclimatic research, light pollution, protection of the atmosphere, estimation of atmospheric resources, the climate of the Tatra Mountains.
Elżbieta Błażek, M.Sc.
Kinga Kulesza, Ph.D.
Research interests: Solar radiation, its variability in time and space. Circular conditions of the inflow of solar radiation to the Earth’s surface. Classifications of atmospheric circulation types, variability of atmospheric circulation over time. Statistical research methods in climatology. Quality of ground-based measurements of solar radiation, methods of quality control and homogenization of actinometric measurements. Weakening of solar radiation caused by natural and anthropogenic factors.
Kamil Leziak, Ph.D.
Research interests: Atmospheric convection, severe weather phenomena, atmospheric circulation, physical-geographical modeling using GIS, climate change, climate change adaptation in urban areas, detection of clouds and cloud types using remote sensing technologies.
Monika Lisowska, Ph.D.
Research interests: renewable energy, climate policy, local and global atmospheric circulation, climate change – adaptation and mitigation, influence of weather on aviation, creating and planning meteorological measurements network
Joanna Popławska, Ph.D.
Artur Surowiecki, M.Sc.
Research interests: Severe weather climatology, deep moist convection, atmospheric circulation, atmospheric conditions of severe thunderstorms development, mesoscale convective systems and their archetypes, detection of severe weather using remote sensing data (especially radar data), severe weather forecasting (including nowcasting techniques), effects of climate change on severe weather, variability of severe thunderstorm occurrence in Europe, severe weather impacts on urban and rural areas.