Zmiany form rolniczego użytkowania ziemi w ВОР w pierwszym etapie uprzemysłowienia

As the area of the future Bełchatów Industrial Region there has been accepted in this article a region encompassing the town of Bełchatów and 16 rural administrative communes in the southern part of the Piotrkow Administrative Province with a total area of 166,400 hectares. The years 1973-1981 were for this hitherto typically agricultural region a period of dynamic transformations accompanying construction of a huge power complex. During this period, a total of 6,200 ha of arable land and 800 ha of forests wet e removed from cultivation, with a much bigger drop in agricultural lands recorded in the nonsocialized sector being dominant on this area. There was also observed out flow of a big number of people, mainly young people, from agriculture. Many farms without successors were taken over by the state in exchange for retiremeng benefits. Apperance of a depression crater and changes in water conditions in soils led to changes in total area and previous structure of agricultura l lands. This concerned mainly permanent grasslands most sensitive to changes in water conditions. The scale of changes is not verv big as yet. It is dependent upon local environmental conditions and distance from the industrial centre. The biggest changes in land use forms occured in rural administrative comnunes of Kleszczów, Kamieńsk and Kluki, as well as in the town and commune of Bełchatów, and especially in villages situated between the town of Bełchatów and the area of the open pit mine and the power station. It is an effect of cumulated influence of a depression crater this area and of expanding urban market of Bełchatów exerting an increasingly stronger influence (fig. 1).