The Water Framework Directive (WFD), whose basic aim was to create a legal back-ground for water bodies’ protection, undoubtedly affects all economic sectors. Being a specific and distinctly different water user, agriculture will have the greatest share in the implementation of WFD out of all sectors of national economy. This results from its special character (60% of the country area used by agriculture), large volume of water consumed by evapotranspiration, diffuse pollution etc. Implementation of WFD will call for undertaking of many activities to restrict an unfavourable im-pact of agriculture on water resources and water related ecosystems. It is assumed that agriculture should also protect water resources. Accomplishment of this task imposes significant changes in the land use of river basins. Water management can be an essential factor deciding about the sustainable development of rural areas and biological diversity of agricultural landscape. Actions undertaken so far to implement the WFD are mainly limited to the protection of water quality from agricultural pol-lution. It is also necessary to undertake implementation of other aims of WFD. This refers especially to the provision of good hydromorphological status of water bodies, protection of water related eco-systems and effective water use.

The Netherlands has a long tradition in water management, mainly stemming from the geography of the country. The ‘struggle with water’ has been organised from medieval times by the water boards (waterschappen), which are the oldest democratic institutions in the Netherlands. Nowa-days the water boards, 27 in the whole of the Netherlands, are not only responsible for flood protec-tion and regulation of water levels, but for water quality management and waste water treatment as well. In the years in which the WFD implementation has been underway in the Netherlands, several issues have arisen. Cooperation between all levels of government is key. This requires as clear as possible divisions of competences between the various parties involved. It also takes much time, es-pecially in a process in which many matters have to be invented ‘on the fly’, such as criteria for des-ignating water bodies, ecological standards, and the formulation of MEP and GEP.

Analysis of the national and regional plans shows that the current year, 2006, shall deter-mine the key lines of national and regional development practically till 2015, that means till the time when, under the Water Framework Directive, Poland should have achieved its major objectives. This year shall witness decision making not only on the key objectives, priority strategies and measures undertaken for social and economic development of the country and regions, but also allocation of the main streams of funds from the EU and public funds from national sources. This is a sort of chal-lenge for administration bodies responsible for water management, particularly in respect of pro-gramming water management tasks and their incorporation into documents which are strategic for development on national and regional level. Over 2006–2008 efforts of water management admini-stration bodies should be focused on incorporation of water management issues into the consecutive edition of the National Ecological Policy and environmental protection programmes – at regional level, to be followed by county and community levels. This paper is a part of the broad stream of methodology and pilot work on the implementation of provisions of the Water Framework Directive in Poland. The main body of the paper consists of the summary of work done for the pilot river basin of Upper Narew.

The article presents the results of analyses of changes in the number of ponds in the Wys-koć catchment basin carried out in the years 1980–2003 and the characteristics of ponds excavated in that period. Only water reservoirs of an area less than 2 ha were considered. Analyses were based on topographic maps in the scale of 1:10 000 and aerial photographs taken in 1996. The results indicated that the number of filled ponds increased, especially those located in fields and grasslands. However, forest and wetland ponds were the most resistant to the processes of quantitative degradation because not even a single pond was filled during the analysed period. Over 70% newly excavated water bod-ies were made as an effect of exploitation of mineral and peat resources. However, nowadays ponds are more often created as a result of intentional human activities and are used for fish farming, recrea-tion and as water retention reservoirs used in irrigation of small agricultural and gardening areas.

This paper presents results of object-oriented classification of Landsat ETM+ satellite im-age conducted using eCognition software. The classified image was acquired on 7 May 2000. In this particular study, an area of 423 km2 within the borders of Legionowo Community near Warsaw is considered.

Prior to classification, segmentation of the Landsat ETM+ image is performed using panchro-matic channel, fused multispectral and panchromatic data. The applied methods of classification en-abled the identification of 18 land cover and land use classes. After the classification, generalization and raster to vector conversion, verification and accuracy assessment are performed by means of vis-ual interpretation. Overall accuracy of the classification reached 94.6%. The verification and classifi-cation results are combined to form the final database.

This is followed by comparing the object-oriented with traditional pixel-based classification. The latter is performed using the so-called hybrid classification based on both supervised and unsuper-vised classification approaches. The traditional pixel-based approach identified only 8 classes. Com-parison of the pixel-based classification with the database obtained using the object-oriented ap-proach revealed that the former reached 72% and 61% accuracy, according to the applied method.

Changes in capacity of water reservoir Cedzyna during its exploitation since 1972 till 2003 are presented in the paper. Analyses were based on cross sections of the reservoir’s basin from before its fulfillment (1967) and those measured with the echo sounder Ceeducer in 2003. Silting of reser-voir was predicted based on empirical methods. The volume of reservoir was found to decrease by 112.8 thousand m3 during 31 years of its exploitation and reservoir’s life span was assessed at 685 years. An error analysis was additionally made of calculating the surface area of a cross section at varying number of sounding sites. It was found that there was no need to note too many coordinates and depths and for the Cedzyna reservoir the distance between measurement sites up to 16 m was sufficient.

The study on water erosion in the catchment basin of the Jeleni Brook was carried out in the years 1995–1999. The catchment of the Jeleni Brook has complex relief, receives frequent pre-cipitations and thus is more threatened by water erosion. Soil cultivation and water from quickly melting snow can also be the factors affecting soil erosion. Waters from the melting snow produce rills of the following dimensions (mean values): width from 11.5 to 13.6 cm, depth – from 6.4 to 7.1 cm and length – from 39 to 112 m. The mean values of soil losses vary from 0.5 to 2.02 t·ha–1.

Erosion caused by intensive storm precipitation occurs less frequently but makes much higher soil losses. One of the registered incidents shows that 51.6 t·ha–1 (4.5 mm of soil layer) can be washed out from the area of 0.66 ha. Combined effect of outwashing and ploughing in lower parts of slopes created new forms of relief such as agricultural terraces (escarps). Agricultural terraces assume the shape of scarps up to 2 m high and of different length (e.g. 150 m) along with the land use border-lines between e.g. forest and field or field and grassland.

Agriculturally used soils within this catchment need protection based mainly on agrotechnical measures or on alteration of land use. Some areas should be afforested.

Permanent grasslands – according to the Water Framework Directive – are typical water related ecosystems so they largely affect water quality, its cycling and balance and therefore deserve protection. They are an element of landscape structure (ecosystem function or service) commonly considered a factor stabilising environmental changes.

Most threats posed to waters in Poland originate from present cropland structure with its definite predominance of arable lands over grasslands. Agriculture should therefore focus on the improvement of land use structure in order to minimise environmental hazards and to guarantee at the same time optimum economic effects. This could be achieved by turning arable lands into grasslands (where justified e.g. on light soils) or at least by maintaining present grassland area (condition in negotiations with the EU) and management that would consider environmental protection.

Increasing the contribution of grasslands to cropland structure or at least maintaining their pre-sent status quo would help to achieve compromise between the goals of farmers and environmental protection. Purposeful utilisation of ecosystem services, particularly those of grasslands, allows to maintain more intensive farming without environmental hazard. Limited should be only such activi-ties whose intensity exceeds regenerative or buffering environmental capacity e.g. on grounds par-ticularly subjected to water pollution or those included into Natura 2000 network.

The European Water Framework Directive can have enormous consequences for agricul-ture in the Netherlands. In parts of the country agriculture should be taken out of production because the nutrient loads to the surface water system are far too high. This doom scenario is of course unde-sired and a number of source-specific and effect-specific measures are necessary. The fate of nutri-ents in the soil is strongly interrelated with its hydrology. Directly, because nutrients are transported by water and the distribution of the residence time of drainage water is a good measure for the time behaviour of the nutrient loads to the surface water system. Longer residence time in the soil means more of nutrients applied by farmers but also a longer recovery period, after applying source-specific measures. In this paper three promising effect-specific hydrological measures are described buffer strips, retention strips, and controlled drainage.

Polish water resources depend on precipitations, which are variable in time and space. In dry years the water balance is negative in central parts of Poland but sudden thaws and downfalls may result in periodical water excess and dangerous floods almost in the entire country. The retention capacity of artificial reservoirs in Poland permits to store only 6% of the average annual runoff, which is commonly considered insufficient. Another method to increase retention is soil water con-trol. About fifty percent of soils in Poland consist of light and very light sandy soils with low water capacity. Loams and organogenic soils cover approximately 25% and 8.5% area of the country, re-spectively. Almost half of agricultural lands (48%) have relatively good water conditions, but the rest requires soil water control measures. An increase of the soil water content could be achieved by changes of soil properties, water table control and soil water management. Modernization and recon-struction of drainage and irrigation systems, which were built mainly in the period 1960–1980, is needed.

Wetlands play a significant role in agricultural landscape. They are the areas of exception-ally great natural values able to regulate water cycling in river catchments. In many cases they are the basic food source for bred animals.

Large areas of wetlands (c. 4 million ha) have been drained for agricultural purposes in Poland. Nevertheless, there are still numerous natural (or close to natural) wetlands, part of which is protected in nature reserves or national parks.

Having in mind the transformation of agriculture and the need of protecting water resources and natural environment, it is necessary to regulate the principles of utilisation and management of re-claimed wetlands. Water management should be adjusted to the type of an area and to environmental requirements. Regardless of the type and intensity of agricultural use of wetlands one has to aim at limiting rapid outflow of spring thaw and rainfall waters which means the reconstruction and increas-ing of natural retention capacity of the river catchment. It is necessary to provide an appropriate num-ber of water lifting facilities and their proper exploitation in land reclamation objects.

It is as well necessary to create appropriate organizational, legal and financial conditions stimu-lating actions to improve water balance and wetland protection.

Loads of N-NO3, N-NH4, PO4 and BOD5 carried in surface waters of the upper Dunajec catchment basin (at the section in Krościenko) in the years 1985–1998 are presented in this paper. Water quality of the Biały Dunajec (in Szaflary), Czarny Dunajec (in Ludźmierz) and Dunajec (in Krościenko) was characterised. Annual loads discharged from the area per km2 of the catchment were calculated from mean annual flows (SQ) and concentrations of studied components in river waters. Concentration of N-NO3 in waters of the Biały Dunajec was more than two times higher and that of phosphates – over seven times higher than the respective concentrations in the Czarny Dunajec and Dunajec. Different population density, numerous tourists and low level of water and sewage infra-structure were responsible for these differences.

The main objective of the paper is to show original theological emphasis on Peter the Apostle. Chapter 21 is considered to be a later addition to the Gospel of John. It is necessary to pay a special attention to related issues of editorial text. Despite its seemingly simple structure John 21: 15-19 poses other challenges. One of them is a puzzling variation of terminology. It is therefore necessary to draw attention to possible variants of critical-literary assessment of the biblical text. In John 21: 15-19 Peter is presented as a shepherd. This par-ticular mission is given to him by the Risen Jesus. The flock, which he has to feed, remains Jesus’ property. John 21:18-19 associated the ministry of Peter with his martyrdom. The entire passage has an ecumenical significance. The delegation of pastoral authority can be treated as a one-off event. The historical context of John 21 indicates the unifying character of the ministry of Peter the Apostle. Proper reading of the text can facilitate dialogue on the nature of the primacy of the Bishop of Rome.

The primacy of the Bishop of Rome is the term for the highest office in the Church. It consists in carrying out a mission appointed to St. Peter and his successors by Christ. The truth about the primacy is a theoretical plane, dogmatically defined at the I Vatican Council in 1870. It also has a practical dimension, which depends on the individual popes and the particular historical context. A characteristic feature of the pontificate of John Paul II was the implementation of the reforms of the II Vatican Council and the Church’s preparation for the Great Jubilee of the third millennium. John Paul II realized the primacy function in accordance with the tradition of the Church, on the grounds of the biblical image of Peter the Apostle, and continuing the line of his predecessors – John XXIII and Paul VI. The leading element of his pontificate was the openness to the world, to man and his dignity, or sensitivity to the signs of the times. The priority at the level of ecclesial unity was a concern for the community at all levels, including the ecumenical field. John Paul II realized the primacy ministry as Servus servorum Dei, in the ancient formula – priority in love .

Joseph Ratzinger discusses papal primacy in the Church, which is a communio based on the relationship between primacy and collegiality. Therefore, he supports jurisdictional primacy executed not in a monarchical way, but collegially, with the Pope as the head of the college of bishops. Joseph Ratzinger discusses the Petrine primacy in the New Testament, which he considers a starting point for a discussion about the succession of Peter’s office, choosing (via media) between papalism and conciliarism. He, therefore, focuses on the personal aspect of primacy connected with a given person. Moreover, the article discusses the relationship between the papacy and doctrinal infallibility. It also poses the question whether after his renunciation Benedict XVI still retains the charisma of doctrinal infallibility (or authentic orthodoxy) and how this refers to the current Pope Francis.

The article compares two models of the Church government, which since Vatican II are often in a certain antagonism in the Catholic Church. The model of „Communio” builds the Universal Church from the local church (i.e. the diocesis); the model of „Iurisdictio” (or „Hierarchy”) starts from the primacy of jurisdiction of the bishop of Rom (and separates „ordo“ and „iurisdictio”) The author proposes (with Walter Kasper) a synthesis of „iuris-dictio” and „ordo” as a theological theme for the third Christian millennium. A special place is given to the discussion of the ecclesiology of Joseph Ratzinger, who demonstrates a development from the significance of the collegiality of the episcopate to the „martyria” of the single bishop in the relation of primacy and collegiality

Exegesis of Matthew 16:13-20, made in the light of historical and doctrinal terms occurred after 70 years in Judea, in which the evangelist Matthew was presented with its Judeo-Christian Church, indicates clearly existing in the text emphasis and related them to universalist objectives . They primarily guided him to define the saving message of Jesus the Risen of being Christological and Ecclesiological, in the final version edited by himself, in the Gospel of the Kingdom at the turning point for the fate of the Palestinian Church. The scene from Caesarea Philippi is edited in a manner which allows Peter to run his church in the Hellenistic world in order to gain complete doctrinal confidence that the same power of binding and resolving in heaven and on earth which he received from Jesus Simon Barjon to exercise it in the land of Israel, is also possessed by Simon Peter to celebrate it with the same saving efficiency in the lands of the heathen. Without this doctrinal certainty, it would probably be impossible to guarantee its further Judeo-Christian existence in the world of ethnochristians and gentiles.

In the time of calling for a new evangelization in the Church as a result is at least the creation of the Papal Council for New Evangelization and the convoking of the XIII Ordi-nary Gathering of Bishops Synod under the watchword “New Evangelization for spreading the Christian faith“, one should be aware of the different types of evangelization. Only on this base can one point to the different aims of evangelization in the church connected with choosing the proper ways to carry it into effect. Speaking about three basic types, which are: missionary evangelization, pastoral evangelization and reevangelization or new evan-gelization one can speak about several basic methods of evangelization. You can describe it as a kerygmatic method, a missionary ministry method, bringing back to life faith for the members of the Church connected with self-evangelization and inculturation, a method connected precisely with pre-evangelization and new evangelization which should always have a joyful character.