Deagrarianization and socioeconomic drivers of forest cover change in rural Poland

This study examines how changes in forest cover in rural Poland are related to socioeconomic development and the degree of deagrarianization of local economies. Understanding these relationships is essential for the design of effective land-use and afforestation policies in structurally diverse rural regions. The analysis was conducted at the level of local administrative units (LAU), covering all rural municipalities in Poland during 2004–2013, a period of intensive forest expansion supported by the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). During the study period, Poland’s forest area increased from 28.7% to 29.3%. Private forests accounted for 80.5% of this increase, indicating that agricultural land-to-forest transitions were the dominant source of new forest area. Using generalized additive models, we identified distinct non-linear relationships between afforestation intensity and key socioeconomic indicators. Forest cover growth was strongest in municipalities with low levels of socioeconomic development and a dominant agricultural function. The effect of deagrarianization was threshold-based: afforestation intensity increased with the deagrarianization index up to approximately 0.3, beyond which no further increase was observed. Spatially, forest expansion was concentrated in peripheral municipalities, particularly those distant from regional centres and characterised by relative monofunctional, family-farming-based economies. The results demonstrate that recent afforestation patterns are weakly aligned with areas of highest ecological need, revealing shortcomings in the spatial targeting of CAP instruments. The findings provide policy-relevant evidence for the development of territorially differentiated afforestation strategies, improved alignment of financial incentives with local socioeconomic conditions, and more effective integration of afforestation into land-use planning and forest policy.