Roman Soja

Institute of Geography and Spatial Organizations

Polish Academy of Sciences

Polish territory is hydrographically self-contained to an exceptional degree for Continental Europe. The term "hydrographic self-containment" means that an area (in this case, Poland) is characterized by concordance between national borders or the boundaries of administrative units and the courses taken by the divides separating drainage basins. The fact that the majority of rivers in Poland both begin and end on Polish territory signifies hydrographic self-containment. Thus, only 10 percent of the area drained by the Vistula and the Oder, Poland's two greatest rivers, lies outside the borders of Poland. Poland is also isolated hydrologically from neighboring marine basins; water across more than 99% of the country drains into the Baltic Sea, while that on only 1% is directed to the North Sea and Black Sea.

Poland's western border follows the courses of the Rivers Oder and Nysa Luzycka, but the drainage basins of the two rivers are extremely asymmetrical. The division with neighboring basins lies only 10 to 20 kilometers or less inside German territory. The Oder originates in a highly industrialized area of the Czech Republic near Poland's southern border. The Czech steel, chemical, and coal industries pollute the waters of the Oder, so that the Oder and Nysa Luzycka are little more than effluents with exceptional loads of toxic substances by the time they reach the Polish border. In addition, oil-derived substances poison the Oder and its small tributary, the Olza, several times annually. In Poland these pollutants are collected from the surface along the border sections, thus protecting the further course of the river. These unilateral actions cause disagreement regarding who should bear the cost of removing the pollutants, and successive signed agreements on this matter have failed.

A second problem along a section of the southern border is the pollution of the River Poprad, a river which originates in the Slovak part of the Tatra Mountains. The problem of the high level of pollution in this river is compounded by the fact that the Poprad is a tributary of the Dunajec. The Dunajec has the greatest water

Front Matter (R1-R6)

Overview (1-12)

1 General Issues of Conservation of Protected Areas (13-54)

2 Biodiversity Conservation in the Participating Countries (55-106)

3 Biosphere Reserves and Natural Conditions in Central European Border Regions (107-164)

4 Wildlife and Tourist Management in Transboundary Protected Areas (165-218)

5 Monitoring and Measuring the Diversity of Life in Border Areas (219-258)

Appendix A: Basic Principles and Research Agenda (259-264)

Appendix B: Workshop Agenda (265-270)

Appendix C: List of Participants (271-279)