In the postwar years, due to industrialisation process in Poland vast areas of the country were affected by environmental degradation. Environmental protection solutions at that time, i.e. national parks and nature reserves, appeared insufficient and Poland faced the threat of large-scale ecological disaster. Therefore, since 1970s proven nature protection models developed in Western Europe were used – by creating large-area landscape parks and special areas of protected landscape.

The Slupia Valley Landscape Park (SVLP) was established in 1981 and now it is one of 9 in total landscape parks in the Pomerania Province. Those parks cover area of 179.208 ha in total, among which the largest one is SVLP (83.170 ha with the buffer zone). Another parks: the Kashubian Landscape Park, the Seaside Landscape Park, the Vistula Spit Landscape Park, the Ilawa Lakeland Landscape Park, the Tricity Landscape Park, the Tuchola Landscape Park, the Wdzydze Landscape Park and the Zaborski Landscape Park. SVLP locates in the middle reaches of the river and its catchment. A protection zone (the buffer zone) nearby the park was created to give protection for surface water and groundwater and partially for air against external pollution. An axis of the park is the river Slupia that flows through several lakes. In another sections the river strongly meanders and changes its direction a few times. The river bed has a varying depth and width, the bottom is rough and stony – with rocks, bars and shoals.

The borders of 3 geomorphic regions meet in the park: the Bytow Lakeland, the Slupsk Plains and the Polanow Plateau. This area was sculptured 13.000 years ago when a cap of the last north-Polish ice sheet melted. That is why it is characterised by strong differences in height and many various land forms which appeared due to intensive melting and movements of the ice sheet – greatly visible end and lateral moraines and sandar are the best evidence for that. The terrain height differences range from 20 to 220 metres above sea level, in the park from 20 to 160 metres above sea level thus creating piedmont landscape with rich flora, numerous streams and various types of bodies of water. Moraine plateaus’ surfaces are dotted with hillocks formed from deposits accumulated in the ice sheet’s hollows (kames). Slupia’s valley is accompanied by large cumulative valleys called valley sandar and inland dunes. The diverse topography is one of the most outstanding attractions of the park which presents unique nature features and guarantees unforgettable visual impressions. Also, this is a great place for leisure and tourism.

The most common tree in the park is scots pine whose population occupies about 80% of the entire forest area (for comparison: beech – 7%, spruce – 5%, birch – 5%, fraxinus and oak – 2% and black alder – 1%). Trees of other species form small concentrations or grow alone. There are also rare plants here – e. g. Daphne mezereum and carnivorous plants: Drosera and common bladderwort. In peat bogs we can find Scheuchzeria, bog rosemary, Rhynchospora alba and Rhynchospora fusca, Ledum palustre, tussock cottongrass and common cottongrass as well as Vaccinium oxycoccos. Take a look at water plants: spatterdock and Lobelia.

In the park there are 60 lakes of different size, shape and genesis. Most of all, these are ribbon lakes and kettle lakes. The most valuable ones in terms of natural features and visual impressions are: Jasien (590 ha), Glebokie (116 ha), Skotawskie Male and Skotawskie Duze (77 ha), Borzytuchomskie Duze (10 ha) and dam reservoirs: Krzynia (126 ha) and Strzegomino (109 ha). The system of rivers and streams is also complex. The river Slupia along with its tributaries: right-bank Skotawa and left-bank Bytowa, Kamienica, Brodek, Kamienna, Zelkowa Woda and Kwacza, resemble piedmont rivers. They all represent specific qualities for seaside waters: more groundwaters than surface waters, a large degree of water abundance and equalisation of discharge per year as well as small water level amplitudes.

SVLP is in range of a humid continental climate. Air masses of different kinds reach the area. In the wintertime, polar oceanic air masses bring warmer temperatures, rainfalls, snowfalls and thaws and in the summertime cause a cloudy weather, rainfalls and frequent thunderstorms. Polar continental air masses, that causes temperature falls in the winter, bring about fantastic and hot weather in the summer. Tropical continental air characterised by high temperatures often arrives in the summer. Tropical oceanic air masses rarely reach this area. They cause warmer temperatures and thaws in the winter and a warm and sultry weather in the summer. The warmest month in year is July, with an average temperature of 16,8 ^oC, and the coldest one is February – 2,3 ^oC on average.