The Potential of Landscape Metrics for Estimating Forest Fire Risk in Poland

Aleksandra Kolanek; Mariusz Szymanowski; Tomasz Niedzielski

doi:10.14746/quageo-2026-0010

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The Potential of Landscape Metrics for Estimating Forest Fire Risk in Poland

Quaestiones Geographicae

Volume 45 (2026): Issue 1 (March 2026)

By: Aleksandra Kolanek , Mariusz Szymanowski and Tomasz Niedzielski

Open Access

|Mar 2026

Figures & Tables

Differences between the structure of forest stands in general forest areas (outer ring) and in stands where fires broke out (inner ring); data from the entire territory of Poland, 2007–2017. Units are given in percentages.

Forest fires occurred in 2007–2017 in Poland (A) and in 2015 in Lubelskie Voivodeship (B).

Table 1.

Share of forest where fires occured in 2015 in relation to share of total forest area in Lubelskie Voivodeship in 2015. Prepared based on the Forest Data Bank (2018) and the National Forest Inventory (2011–2015) (https://www.bdl.lasy.gov.pl/portal/wisl-en).

Tree stand characteristic		share [%] of total forest area	share [%] of forests, where fires occured
trophic type	coniferous	17.8	48.13
	mixed (conifer–dominated)	28.0	27.5
	mixed (deciduous–dominated)	27.9	20.0
	deciduous	26.3	4.0
humidity type	fresh	80.0	86.3
	humid	14.8	9.4
	other	5.2	4.3
age class (in years)	0–20	9.2	14.9
	21–40	15.6	13.13
	41–60	26.6	24.7
	61–80	25.9	36.4
	81–100	13.2	8.4
	more than 100	5.0	1.9

Examples of patch distribution in buffer zones belonging to individual classes for the three analysed stand features. Data source: Forest Data Bank (2018). Each forest subarea has specific attributes (top row). Adjacent subareas with the same attributes were merged to forest patches (bottom row).

Table 2.

Landscape metrics used in this study.

patches feature	Metric name and acronym	explanation
number of forest patches	Number of patches (NumP)	– total number of patches in the landscape (landscape level) – number of patches for each class (class level)
size of forest patches	Mean patch size (MPS)	– average patch size of all patches (landscape level) – average patch size of each class patches (class level)
	Median patch size (MedPS)	– median patch size of all patches (landscape level) – median patch size of each class patches (class level)
	Patch Size Standard Deviation (PSSD)	– standard deviation of all patch size (landscape level) – standard deviation of patch size within class (class level)
	Patch Size Coefficient of Variance (PSCoV)	– relative variability of all patch sizes within a landscape (landscape level) – relative variability of patch size within class (class level)
edges of forest patches	Edge density (ED)	The amount of patch edges relative to the patch area: – edge density of all classes (landscape level) – edge density of each class (class level)
edges of forest patches	Mean patch edge (MPE)	The average amount of edge per patch – for all patches (landscape level) – for each class patches (class level)
forest patches complexity	Mean shape index (MSI)	Takes values equal to or greater than 1, when patches are circular, then MSI = 1 – for all patches (landscape level) – for each class patches (class level)
	Area-weighted mean shape index (AWMSI)	MSI related to patch size – for all patches (landscape level) – for each class patches (class level)
	Mean perimeter-area ratio (MPAR)	Perimeter of patches related to patch area: – for all patches (landscape level) – for each class patches (class level)

Table 3.

U Mann-Whitney test of significance of differences between test (A1) and control (B and C) groups for a landscape level in the Lubelskie province (with significance level of 0.05); * – statistically significant difference; – – non-significance; × – no fulfillment of the Ljung-Box test assumptions (with significance level of 0.01).

forest feature	metric	mean values			significance of difference		direction of difference (group A1 compared to other(s))
forest feature	metric	group A1	group B	group C	A1 vs B	A1 vs C	direction of difference (group A1 compared to other(s))
age class	MedPS	8,728.06	11,059.75	×	*	×	↓
	MPE	1,003.29	1,061.11	1,065.97	*	*	↓
	AWMSI	3.04	2.87	×	*	×	↑
trophic type	NumP	56.30	43.60	×	*	×	↑
	MPS	98,897.47	133,178.45	142,389.22	*	*	↓
	PSCoV	355.83	319.81	×	*	×	↑
	MPE	1,299.43	1,470.54	1,507.99	*	*	↓
	AWMSI	3.06	2.91	×	*	×	↑
humidity type	NumP	49.26	38.29	39.93	–	*	↑
	MPS	107,686.13	144,325.46	159,496.67	–	*	↓
	PSCoV	344.65	314.08	×	*	×	↑
	MPE	1,386.21	1,542.72	1,575.72	*	*	↓
	AWMSI	3.13	2.97	2.81	*	*	↑

Table 4.

U Mann-Whitney test of significance of differences between test (A1) and control (B and C) groups for a class level in the Lubelskie province (with significance level of 0.05); * _ statistically significant difference; – – non-significance; × – no fulfillment of the Ljung-Box test assumptions (with significance level of 0.01).

forest feature	class	metric	mean values			significance of difference		direction of difference (group A1 compared to other(s))
forest feature	class	metric	group A1	group B	group C	A1 vs B	A1 vs C	direction of difference (group A1 compared to other(s))
age class	0–20	NumP	10.74	9.62	10.08	*	–	↑
		MPS	15,843.95	18,852.84	22,300.089	–	*	↓
		MPE	598.63	643.17	699.68	–	*	↓
	21–40	NumP	14.58	11.70	×	*	×	↑
		MPS	16,007.82	×	23,208.13	×	*	↓
		PSSD	18,196.26	×	24,523.71	×	*	↓
		MPE	572.97	×	699.26	×	*	↓
	41–60	MedPS	10,261.88	16,281.81	22,505.81	*	*	↓
		MPE	716.95	869.33	838.83	*	*	↓
		MPAR	0.16	0.14	0.13	–	*	↑
	above 100	MPS	48,430.89	82,508.20	90,334.95	*	*	↓
		MedPS	34,246.01	59,932.55	64,983.52	*	*	↓
		PSSD	36,922.72	63,068.51	74,370.46	–	*	↓
		TE	3,902.17	5,077.76	5,848.49	–	*	↓
		ED	0.0012	0.0016	0.0019	–	*	↓
		MPE	940.87	1,313.20	1,328.98	*	*	↓
trophic type	coniferous	MPAR	0.13	0.11	0.23	*	–	↑
	mixed (coniferous dominance)	MPS	50,221.79	97,672.72	76,815.13	*	*	↓
		PSSD	76,474.80	135,536.72	109,243.81	*	*	↓
		TE	13,611.17	14,224.80	14,768.00	*	–	↓
		ED	0.0043	0.0045	0.0047	*	–	↓
		MPE	965.20	1,351.90	1,202.55	*	*	↓
		AWMSI	1.8767	2.0293	2.0349	*	–	↓
	mixed (deciduous dominance)	MPS	65,612.30	125,744.80	129,248.48	*	*	↓
		TE	8,056.01	11,467.22	10,461.48	*	*	↓
		ED	0.0026	0.0036	0.0033	*	*	↓
		MPE	1,044.97	1,397.51	1,425.78	*	*	↓
		AWMSI	1.74	1.91	1.88	*	*	↓
trophic type	deciduous	MedPS	32,883.01	×	151,401.46	×	*	↓
		PSCoV	74.46	98.49	104.39	*	*	↓
		TE	3,752.86	8,102.72	7,812.92	*	*	↓
		ED	0.0012	0.0026	0.0025	*	*	↓
		MPE	901.56	1,615.18	1,786.23	*	*	↓
		MPFD	1.41	1.38	1.39	–	*	↑
		AWMPFD	1.36	1.34	1.33	*	*	↑
	riparian	PSSD	1,018.44	28,118.00	8,191.14	*	–	↓
humidity type	lowland/upland boggy	MPS	32,655.46	45,032.88	47,329.74	*	*	↓
		MedPS	26,755.34	26,933.49	33,966.39	*	*	↓
		PSSD	27,515.54	48,934.72	34,810.27	*	*	↓
		TE	3,565.16	5,044.87	4,777.90	*	–	↓
		ED	0.0011	0.0016	0.0015	*	–	↓
		MPE	795.19	1,008.65	1,025.47	*	*	↓
		AWMPFD	1.37	1.36	1.36	–	*	↑
	lowland/upland humid	MPS	49,006.54	64,442.65	66,420.40	*	*	↓
		MedPS	18,806.61	23,624.03	36,780.94	*	*	↓
		MSI	1.70	1.76	1.73	*	–	↓
		AWMSI	1.86	2.05	1.94	*	*	↓
	lowland/upland fresh	NumP	20.31	15.40	×	*	×	↑
		MPS	11,4533.22	277,913.46	278,704.02	*	*	↓
		PSSD	18,3262.98	257,122.58	×	*	×	↓
		MPE	1,441.72	1,929.30	1,977.48	*	*	↓
		AWMPFD	1.32	1.31	×	*	×	↑
	lowland dry	MPS	59,539.82	19,212.09	22,153.63	*	*	↑
		MedPS	54,795.90	16,524.39	14,166.96	–	*	↑
		MPE	1229.21	633.41	598.16	*	*	↑
		MPAR	0.0410	0.0509	0.0591	–	*	↓

References

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.14746/quageo-2026-0010 | Journal eISSN: 2081-6383 | Journal ISSN: 2082-2103 (formerly 0137-477X)

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Language: English

Page range: 155 - 170

Submitted on: Jun 10, 2025

Published on: Mar 12, 2026

Published by: Adam Mickiewicz University

In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services

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© 2026 Aleksandra Kolanek, Mariusz Szymanowski, Tomasz Niedzielski, published by Adam Mickiewicz University
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Volume 45 (2026): Issue 1 (March 2026)

The Potential of Landscape Metrics for Estimating Forest Fire Risk in Poland

Figures & Tables

Fig. 1.

Fig. 2.

Table 1.

Fig. 3.

Table 2.

Table 3.

Table 4.

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