Ryszard J. Kaczka

• PhD
• Researcher at Charles University in Prague

Temperate forests are undergoing significant transformations due to the influence of climate change, including varying responses of different tree species to increasing temperature and drought severity. To comprehensively understand the full range of growth responses, representative datasets spanning extensive site and climatic gradients are essent...

To enhance our understanding of forest carbon sequestration, climate change mitigation and drought impact on forest ecosystems, the availability of high-resolution annual forest growth maps based on tree-ring width (TRW) would provide a significant advancement to the field. Site-specific characteristics, which can be approximated by high-resolution...

Inter-annual climatically driven growth variability of above-ground biomass compartments (for example, tree stems and foliage) controls the intensity of carbon sequestration into forest ecosystems. However, understanding the differences between the climatic response of stem and foliage at the landscape level is limited. In this study, we examined t...

The European Dendroecological Fieldweek (EDF) is a one-week course that takes place every year at varying locations in Europe according to the principle “Bring tree-ring research to the people”. The EDF welcomes early-career to advanced researchers, but also forest service and other federal agency employees and private people interested in tree-rin...

Radial tree growth is sensitive to environmental conditions, making observed growth increments an important indicator of climate change effects on forest growth. However, unprecedented climate variability could lead to non‐stationarity, i.e., a decoupling of tree growth responses to climate over time, potentially inducing biases in climate reconstr...

Blue intensity (BI) techniques offer a cost-effective, tree ring parameters that are representative of densiometric ring growth and are increasingly being integrated in the various fields of dendrochronology. Particularly, the refinement and application of latewood blue intensity (LWB) is particularly popular within the field of dendroclimatology....

Although variations in building activity are a useful indicator of societal well-being and demographic development, historical datasets for larger regions and longer periods are still rare. Here, we present 54,045 annually precise dendrochronological felling dates from historical construction timber from across most of Europe between 1250 and 1699...

Although there are ample data on growth trends and climate growth relationships of trees from the leading edge of their distribution at treeline, information from the neighbouring trailing edge of the vegetation belt dominated by alpine shrubs is missing. We expected trees at their upper limit to exhibit unambiguous temperature limitation with a cl...

Blue Intensity (BI) is coming of age in dendrochronology, although some methodological challenges are still left to be solved. In the last 20 years, 59 papers have been published focussing mainly on climatological based studies, although BI has also been shown to be useful both for historical dating and dendroecological studies. This short paper br...

Coastal sand dunes near the Baltic Sea are a dynamic environment marking the boundary between land and sea and oftentimes covered by Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) forests. Complex climate-environmental interactions characterize these ecosystems and largely determine the productivity and state of these coastal forests. In the face of future clima...

Debris floods are mass movement events which are usually triggered by intense short duration rainfall events. They often occur on alluvial fans in an alpine environment. Due to their sever geohazard potential they pose a serious threat to infrastructure and human life. To minimize their threat understanding of their past magnitude occurrence is cru...

Compression wood (CW) is a common tissue present in the trunk, branches and roots of mechanically stressed coniferous trees. Its main role is to increase the mechanical strength and regain the vertical orientation of a leaning stem. Compression wood is thought to influence the climate signal in different tree-ring measures. Hence trees containing C...

At a global scale, heat deficits during the growing season result in growth limitations, which determine the elevation of natural alpine treelines. Thus, the expected response to global warming is a treeline advance to higher elevations. However, empirical studies of diverse mountain ranges have yielded evidence of both advancing alpine treelines a...

The role of future forests in global biogeochemical cycles will depend on how different tree species respond to climate. Interpreting the response of forest growth to climate change requires an understanding of the temporal and spatial patterns of seasonal climatic influences on the growth of common tree species. We constructed a new network of 310...

X‐ray microdensitometry on annually resolved tree‐ring samples has gained an exceptional position in last‐millennium paleoclimatology through the maximum latewood density (MXD) parameter, but also increasingly through other density parameters. For 50 years, X‐ray based measurement techniques have been the de facto standard. However, studies report...

Ring-width series are important for diverse fields of research such as the study of past climate, forest ecology, forest genetics, and the determination of origin (dendro-provenancing) or dating of archeological objects. Recent research suggests diverging climate-growth relationships in tree-rings due to the cardinal direction of extracting the tre...

Abstrakt. W ramach badań dendroklimatycznych przetestowano zastosowanie dziennych danych klimatycznych, porównując wyniki z uzyskanymi dla stan-dardowo używanych średnich miesięcznych. Wyniki analiz zestawiono z infor-macjami o ksylogenzie, podejmując próbę zastosowania wiedzy o powstawaniu przyrostu rocznego do interpretacji wyników korelacji szer...

Abstrakt. W środowisku górskim klimat, szczególnie temperatura powietrza, ma znaczący wpływ na aktywność kambium oraz tworzenie się drewna wtór-nego. Wystąpienie przypadków niskiej temperatury powietrza w sezonie wege-tacyjnym stwarza niekorzystne warunki do wzrostu drzew, co między innymi może oddziaływać na formowanie się komórek drewna późnego i...

Dendrogeomorfologija je veda, ki se ukvarja z datiranjem in preučevanjem geomorfoloških procesov na podlagi drevesnih branik in rastnih anomalij. Čeprav je metodologija zelo razširjena pri preučevanju naravnih nesreč v tujini, je v Sloveniji, kljub potencialu za številne raziskave, še vedno redko v uporabi. Za prve dendrogeomorfološke raziskave smo...

Himalayan treelines are exposed to above average climate change impact, resulting in complex tree growth–climate relationships for Himalayan Silver Fir (Abies spectabilis (D. Don) Spach) at central Himalayan treelines. The majority of recent studies detected current tree growth sensitivity to dry conditions during pre-monsoon seasons. The aim of th...

Growth divergence – i.e. the expression of divergent growth trends of neighboring trees – has certain implications for dendrochronological research, for instance in the context of climate reconstructions but also in terms of estimating net ecosystem productivity. Thus, understanding the underlying mechanisms is essential to extend our fundamental d...

Annually resolved and absolutely dated Maximum Latewood Density (MXD) and Blue Intensity (BI) measurements are frequently used for reconstructing summer temperature variability over the last centuries to millennia. A direct comparison of the outcome of both methods using similar material is needed due to how quickly this method is being adopted. Th...

This paper reports from a survey of the occurrence of large avalanches in Żleb Żandarmerii. This couloir is known to be one of the most hazardous avalanche paths in the Tatra Mountains and has one of the longest histories of avalanche observation. This survey looked at the runout distance, return period, dynamics and geoecological implications of a...

The present paper reviews selected outcomes of the FLORIST project devoted to flood risk in the region of the northern foothills of the Tatra Mountains in Poland and summarizes novel results. The project encompassed theoretical, field, and modeling work. It was focused around observation-based hydroclimatology; projections for the future; dendrogeo...

Seasonally formed, perennial growth increments of various organisms may possibly contain information about past environmental changes, well before instrumental measurements occurred. Such annually resolved proxy records have been mainly obtained from terrestrial archives, with a paucity of similar data originating from marine habitats. Iceland repr...

Key message Decadal growth variability of Norway spruce increases with elevation. Recent temperature sensitivity and growth enhancement are limited to trees growing in the zone adjacent to timberline. Abstract Growth trends and climate responses of forest trees along elevational gradients are not fully understood. A deeper insight is, however, fund...

Distance of large wood transport during floods and conditions for wood deposition in wide mountain rivers are still insufficiently understood. Tracking of logs tagged with radio transmitters was used to investigate differences in depositional conditions and the length of log displacement during a 20-year flood between channel reaches of different m...

This chapter examines the long-term variability of summer (June–July) air temperature and summer humidity (precipitation and Standardised Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index, SPEI) in the region of the Tatra Mountains, which represents natural climate conditions, free of strong anthropogenic influences. The reconstruction of temperature is avail...

Mountains and their foothills are areas where intense floods are characterized by high discharge and where they occur more often than in lowlands. Furthermore, due to the fact that they are mainly caused by short-lasting heavy rainfall events, they are difficult to predict. The dense network of meteorological stations and river gauges is crucial to...

Applicability, advantages and limitations of a range of methods applied to determine large wood dynamics in Kamienica Stream and the Czarny Dunajec River, Polish Carpathians, are discussed. Results of a 6-year-long monitoring suggest an increased rate of wood recruitment to Kamienica Stream caused by recent bark beetle infestation of the spruce for...

Intense physical weathering engenders formation of scree cones at the foot of slopes dissected by couloirs. Combination of several geomorphic processes operating within the slope results in formation of cones of a polygenetic character (talus-alluvial cones, rockfall talus cones, or – in particular cases, talus-alluvial-avalanche cones). This study...

Mass movements represent important processes that shape relief in Alpine areas. In this article, we present the spatio-temporal dynamics of the Ciprnik landslide (Julian Alps, NW Slovenia) and interpret its triggering and evolution. In the study area, mass movement activity is characterised by two phases: normal deposition on the fluvial fans that...

The upper forest limit is principally controlled by climate factors, mainly temperature but locally also other factors, such as snow avalanches, debris flows, and wind throw. Therefore, the timberline course may be use as a proxy of these drivers. The aim of the study was to employ the morphometric features of the upper for- est limit for remote de...

Treelines have long been recognized as important ecotones and likely harbingers of climate change. However, over the last century many treelines have been affected not only by global warming, but also by the interactions of climate, forest disturbance and the consequences of abrupt demographic and economic changes. Recent research has increasingly...

The snow avalanche is one of the major processes that shapes the landscape of high mountains. A significant manifestation of its activity is changing the course of the timberline, whose course and growth disturbances constitute a good source of information about the history of avalanche activity. The aim of this study was to: i) detail the temporal...

Abstrakt. Drewno kompresyjne charakteryzuje się m.in. okrągłym kształtem komórek ksylemu oraz przestrzeniami międzykomórkowymi. W dendrokli-matologii uznawane jest za element zakłócający sygnał klimatyczny. Celem badań było określenie wpływu drewna kompresyjnego na: i) występowanie dekoncentryczności przyrostów rocznych świerka pospolitego, oraz ii...

Abstrakt. Intensywność odbicia światła niebieskiego (ION) jest jednym z naj-nowszych narzędzi badawczych w dendrochronologii. W ciągu ostatnich lat z powodzeniem wykorzystuje się ją głównie w badaniach dendroklimatycz-nych. Celem niniejszej pracy było przetestowanie użyteczności ION w datowa-niu drewna historycznego. Badania prowadzone były w Tatra...

Abstrakt. Celem niniejszej pracy było określenie wpływu lawin śnieżnych na przyrosty roczne drzew rosnących w żlebie sąsiadującym od północy z Urwanym Żlebem na stokach Miedzianego szczytu, w Tatrach Wysokich. Badania oparto na analizie szerokości przyrostów i anatomii drewna 88 drzew (Picea abies (L.) H. Karst., Pinus cembra L. i Sorbus aucuparia...

Abstrakt. Intensywność Odbicia Światła Niebieskiego (ION) jest jednym z najnowszych nośników informacji dendrochronologicznej. Jest ona wyraźnie związana z gęstością drewna, ale jej pomiar jest szybszy i tańszy niż klasyczny pomiar gęstości drewna. Przed pomiarem ION wymagana jest odpowiednia preparacja drewna, która dotyczy między innymi usunięcia...

The aim of studies was to summarize all available published records of snow avalanche events in the Tatra Mountains in a form of a geodatabase and assess the usefulness of compiled information for analyses of long-term changes in snow avalanches characteristics. The systematic study of various sources from Poland and Slovakia resulted in geodatabas...

Floods represent a common process in Tatra Mountain streams and may cause flood risk in the valleys of the Tatra foreland. Dealing with the hazards and risks caused by floods requires a detailed analysis of the frequency and magnitude of past and recent events. However, the Polish Tatra region is characterized by a scarcity of data on past floods i...

The paper discuss climatic, geomorphic and geobotanic conditions of snow avalanches activity in the Tatra Mountains. Relief and climate are found to be the most important natural factors that determine the occurrence of avalanches in the area. Simultaneously influence of snow avalanches on relief and vegetation cover is considered. It is the most d...

The growth/climate response of Norway spruce in the timberline ecotone of Babia Góra Mountain was exam- ined. Based on a pool of 708 trees from 10 sites, the influence of age, exposure, and method of computing chronology, was assessed. Gridded data and 12 instrumental series were used to study the spatiotemporal re- lationship of the tree growth an...

The character and main natural and anthropogenic factors driving the timberline on the Babia Góra Mt. was discussed. The model of Holtmeier (2009) was modified to describe the functioning of the local timberline. Originating in a geological structure, the asymmetric shape of the ridge of the Babia Góra Mt. created conse- quences for most of the com...

A comparison was done of the timberline course from the mid-20th and beginning of 21st century, in Mengus- ovská Valley (Slovakia) and Rybi Potok Valley (Poland). These are two valleys in the High Tatra Mts. Aerial photos and satellite images were used to assess the changes of the timberline in the two valleys. The course of the timberline ecotone...

Timberline ecotone (TE) generally developed because the temperatures in the environment were too low. There are other overlapping biotic and abiotic factors which affect the TE. The main aim of this work was to determine how the asymmetry of Babia Góra’s ridge influences the location and characteristics of the timberline ecotone nowadays, and how t...

In nature, division lines are delineated where multiple important environmental features change. These division lines may be singled out at the intersection of two geosystems (Balon 2000) where the functional uniformity of the geosystems located on both sides are preserved (Forman & Gordon 1986; Cadenasso et al. 2003). A significant environmental b...

The pattern of timberline distribution on mountain ranges world-wide is related to global factors. The basic factor is temperature and the amount of radiation, which falls with increasing distance from the equator. Additionally, this basic relationship is overlaid by the specific features of the type of climate on the massif (degree of continentali...

Snow avalanches are the major natural hazard in most mountain regions in the world. They influence natural enviroment, touristic infrastructure and also endanger human life. The activity of snow avalanches affects landscape, especially forests, and controls the course of a timberline. They are the main factor limiting the recently observed warming-...

Downy birch (Betula pubescens Ehrh.) is one of the main native tree species in Northern Europe. It grows from Greenland and Iceland to Scandinavia and further east, across the Northern Eurasia.Although various birch species are common on both continents, Downy birch is more associated with exposed habitats such as mountains and high latitudes. In I...

Celem badań było: a) określenie zmian górnej granicy lasu (GGL) w latach 1964–2009 na Babiej Górze (1725 m n.p.m.), b) zidentyfikowanie obszarów progresywnej górnej granicy lasu i c) wskazanie czynników sprzy-jających występowaniu zwartego lasu na większej wysokości n.p.m. W bada-nym okresie GGL (38 km długości) na Babiej Górze podniosła się o 16 m...

Basing on LiDAR data, the re-interpretation of the limit and distribution of the selected landslide forms in 9 test areas were carried out. The forms are located at the slopes of the monoclinal ridge of Babia Góra Mt. (1,725 m a.s.l.) in the flysch Western Carpathians. The earlier knowledge on these landforms is shown in the unpublished map at the...

Abstrakt. Na potrzeby datowania gwałtowanych, wysokoenergetycznych pro-cesów, powodujących uszkodzenia drzew najlepszym narzędziem jest analiza anomalii drewna wtórnego (uszkodzenia pnia i korzeni, występowanie trau-matycznych kanałów żywicznych i drewna reakcyjnego). Celem badań była analiza dokładności datowań zdarzeń geomorfologicznych powodując...

Abstract. Altitude-related changes of climate/growth response of Picea abies (L.) Karst.) in the Tatras and Picea schrenkiana sp. in the Chatkal Range (Tien- Shan). The altitudinal change of climate is one of the main features describing the mountain environment. The character of changes is related to both, the type of mountains and the climatic re...

Abstract. Record of volcanic eruptions in tree-rings of stone pine Pinus cembra L. in the High Tatra Mts. The aim of the study was to determine the record of climatic events in stone pine Pinus cembra L. connected with the main volcanic eruptions in the last 280 years. To analyze wood anomalies, 51 samples were used. A chronology of tree-ring width...

The present paper introduces the topical area of the Polish–Swiss research project FLORIST (Flood risk on the northern foothills of the Tatra Mountains), informs on its objectives, and reports on initial results. The Tatra Mountains are the area of the highest precipitation in Poland and largely contribute to flood generation. The project is focuse...

Abstrakt. Celem badań było porównanie wyników analiz dendroklimatycznych szerokości przyrostów rocznych (TRW) i pomiaru intensywności odbicia niebieskiej składkowej światła padającego na powierzchnię drewna (BR). Regionalne chronologie TRW i BR dla świerków pospolitych (Picea abies L. Karst) rosnących w Tatrach i na Babiej Górze zestawiono z danymi...

Abstrakt. Celem badań było określenie dynamiki wzrostu drzewostanu i jej przestrzennego zróżnicowania na podstawie wieku drzew, ich lokalizacji oraz historii siedlisk ponad górną granicą lasu. Badania dotyczyły obszaru ponad gór-ną granicą lasu na Babiej Górze (1725 m n.p.m.), dwóch najwyżej położonych stanowisk świerka w Beskidach: a) obszaru pod...

Vegetated islands are characteristic landforms of braided mountain rivers. Long-term observations and recent morphological and botanical surveys conducted in the gravel-bed Czarny Dunajec, Polish Carpathians, were used to determine the processes and patterns governing initiation and development of islands and their floristic complexity. Moreover, d...

The present paper introduces the topical area of the Polish-Swiss research project FLORIST (Flood risk on the northern foothills of the Tatra Mountains), informs on its objectives, and reports on initial results. The Tatra Mountains are the area of the highest precipitation in Poland and largely contribute to flood generation. The project is focuse...

Carpathian pine growth at its natural range limit, where small hydroclimatic fluctuations are indicated by tree-ring width anomalies, may provide insight into past ecological responses to climatic changes. Tree-ring chronologies from extreme cliff sites may also contain annually resolved and accurately dated information to facilitate the developmen...

Abstract. The Czarny Dunajec River draining the Western Tatras and its foothills, southern Poland, is one of the last relatively undisturbed, gravel-bed rivers in Cen- tral Europe. The study aims at reconstructing the development of the largest patchy - structure island (1.78 ha) using both tree-ring and GIS methods. The study of changes in this fo...

Abstract. As a result of constant human pressure natural montane forest has almost completely disappeared from Carpathian Mountains. Small, isolated re- minds of the mixed forest consist fir, beech, spruce survived in Tatras. This creates opportunity to study the recent dynamics and climate response of that natural ecosystem. This study aims at def...

Occurrence and selected morphometric features of debris flow tracks in the Tatra Mountains and the Karkonosze Mountains Debris flows belong to the key geomorphological processes which shape hillslopes in high mountains and steep slopes of medium-altitude mountains located above the tim- berline. In Poland debris flows occur frequently in the Tatra...

Abstract. Here we present characteristics of wood anomalies in tree-rings of Nor- way spruce from two different altitudinal zones in Tatras: pale rings, frost rings and resin ducts. The samples from two sites located in subalpine zone (Dubrawiska, Dolina Pyszniañska) and two from montane zone (Adamica, Dolina Bia3ki) were analysed. Together, 120 sa...

Abstrakt. W artykule przedstawiono wyniki badań nad zmianami morfometrii szlaków lawinowych w Dolinie Kościeliskiej od momentu ustanowienia Tatrzańskiego Parku Narodowego (1955-2004). Główną metodą badawczą były kartograficzne analizy w wykorzystaniem technik GIS i fotointerpretacji map, zdjęć lotniczych i satelitarnych. Wyniki badań wskazują, że o...

Abstrakt. Szlaki turystyczne, szczególnie w obszarach górskich, są narażone na degradację często stając się głównymi miejscami podatnymi na rozwój naturalnych procesów morfologicznych, takich jak spłukiwanie i erozja linijna. Stopniowe poszerzanie ścieżek spowodowane omijaniem przez turystów naturalnych przeszkód (kałuże, korzenie drzew, podmokłośc...

This study aims at determining whether the inverse relation between wood quantity per unit river area and channel width, recognised in streams of small and medium width, typifies also wide mountain rivers. This is done by comparing wood distribution for Finzbach and Kamienica Streams, 14 and 9 m in width on average, and the Czarny Dunajec River wit...