A research has been carried out for 25 years in Wolin Island (satellite photo on the left) and the Gardno-Łeba Plain on the evolution and dynamics of coastal geoecosystems. It has been gaining in importance together with the mounting threat involved in the steadily rising level of the world ocean in response to climate warming.

The sampling of organic deposits during a geological expedition to northern Honshu, Japan, in 2004. Studies in eastern Asia are carried out by an international group under the projects "Asian Lake Drilling Programme" and "Yangtze River Civilization Project" co-ordinated by Prof. Yoshinori Yasuda from the International Research Center for Japanese Studies in Kyoto, Japan. The research is conducted in Japan, China, Korea, Mongolia, India, and Easter Island. It focuses on changes in the natural environment, climate and culture in eastern Asia and the Pacific over the last 50,000 years (photo by M. Makohonienko).

Pollen of the hornbeam (Carpinus). Palynological studies make it possible to reconstruct Quaternary changes in the climate and the environment (photo by Alicja Stach).

The laboratory of the AMU Geoecological Station at Storkowo (photo by J. Szpikowski). The station is part of the measuring network of the Integrated Monitoring of the Natural Environment, which is designed to analyse the state and development tendencies of ecosystems in Poland. The research, which rests on calculating the balance of matter circulation and energy flow in ecosystems, observations of indicator organisms (bioindication), and changes in species composition (biodiversity), allows rational management and protection of the country's natural resources.

The sampling of deposits from a boring profile on the beach of the Łeba Bar using the MERES drilling rig. This area is an exemplary testing site for research on the evolution of coastal zones over the last 10,000 years. It focuses especially on the effect of sea-level changes caused by the crustal uplift produced by the wastage of the Scandinavian ice-sheet, and by variations in the volume of the oceans.

A fragment of a geomorphological map of the Petuniabukta area in West Spitsbergen imposed on a digital relief model (block diagram prepared by A. Stach). The map has been prepared by a team headed by Prof. A. Karczewski. For more than 20 years the IG&G staff have conducted interdisciplinary studies of Arctic and Antarctic regions, which provide a testing ground for hypotheses about the formation of glacial relief and the functioning of Poland's natural environment in glacial periods. Those areas are also of interest because of the fast and extensive changes occurring there as a result of the advancing process of global warming. The changes are of crucial importance for the functioning of the natural system of the entire planet. This issue has been studied by IG&G workers under the research project "Structure, evolution and dynamics of the lithosphere, cryosphere and biosphere in the European sector of the Arctic and in the Antarctic".

A diagram of an analysis leading to a new approach to the spatial-temporal structure of the field of monthly precipitation totals in Poland (A. Stach - IG&G, J. Tamulewicz - IPG&EP).

Examples of maps prepared on the basis of data collected in the raster database of monthly rainfall totals in Poland (A. Stach - IG&G, J. Tamulewicz - IPG&EP). Precipitation is one of the elements of the climate which is of paramount economic importance, e.g. for agriculture, water management, tourism, and many other fields. The pluviometric data used today are even more valuable if they are in a digital form of a high spatial resolution, and especially if they are supplemented with quantitative assessments of their quality (accuracy). Over the last decade, there has been a proliferation of raster bases of rainfall data embracing areas of varying sizes, such as river basins, physical-geographic regions, administrative units, continents, and the entire globe. Today such databases are in possession of most European countries.