Harmonizing, merging and publishing hydropedological data for the Czech Republic

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luděk Strouhal ◽  
Petr Kavka ◽  
Hana Beitlerová ◽  
Daniel Žížala
Keyword(s):  
Czech Republic ◽  
Water Conservation ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Agricultural Land ◽  
Arable Land ◽  
Field Measurements ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
Project Duration ◽  
Erosion Mitigation ◽  
Mitigation Projects

<p>Czech soil data is a mess. Modelling infiltration, or its probably most watched companion - runoff, has been quite a painful process for any researcher or practitioner studying any site larger or more heterogeneous than a few parcels of arable land. There are at least three main national soil databases in the Czech Republic, each of different age, scope, classification system and - most unfortunately - different administrator. So far Research Institute for Soil and Water Conservation has taken good care of data for agricultural land, while The Forest Management Institute did his job considering forest soils. A few other research institutes manage their own specific databases. There has been no service available providing consistent data for the whole country, nor methodology giving some guidelines on how to cope with differences in existing datasets, though a few large-scale applications and studies do exist. This contribution presents preliminary results of a running project TJ02000234 - Physical and hydropedological soil properties of the Czech Republic. It aims at harmonizing and combining available datasets and deriving layers of soil texture and hydropedological properties. Next the project aims at gathering available measurements of hydraulic properties of Czech soil types and their partial validation and extending with field measurements in the scope limited by the 2-years of project duration. The derived database and data products will be published in the form of a certified map as well as offered to professionals through an online GIS portal. Design planners in the Land consolidation, flood and soil erosion mitigation projects as well as professionals in public administration and researchers in environmental disciplines will benefit from the publication of this consistent data.</p>

scholarly journals Which quality indicators reflect the most sensitive changes in the soil properties of the surface horizons affected by the erosion processes?

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (No. 2) ◽  
pp. 116-124
Author(s):  
Petra Bíla ◽  
Bořivoj Šarapatka ◽  
Ondřej Horňák ◽  
Jaroslava Novotná ◽  
Martin Brtnický
Keyword(s):  
Czech Republic ◽  
Soil Erosion ◽  
Soil Properties ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Agricultural Land ◽  
Arable Land ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
Erosion Processes ◽  
Physical Chemical

Soil erosion, especially water erosion, is one of the most widespread types of soil degradation, not only worldwide, but also within the Czech Republic, where it endangers more than a half of the agricultural land. In addition to farming, the landscape structure has a significant impact on soil erosion in the conditions under study, where, especially in the post-war period, the collectivisation of large-scale arable land was accompanied by the abolition of the associated landscape elements. The agricultural production area of South Moravia is one of the most endangered areas in the Czech Republic, therefore, it was selected for our research, whose main objective was to verify the sensitivity of the selected physical, chemical and biochemical characteristics to identify the changes in the soil properties in the erosion processes at the identified erosion areas. The testing was carried out within a period of 5 years in 60 locations with Chernozems with cultivated corn. To assess the quality of the soil properties, indicators of soil quality from the physical, chemical and biological – biochemical groups were selected. The results of the analyses and the subsequent statistical evaluation showed that the chemical characteristics, especially those related to the quantity and quality of the organic matter, were the most sensitive to the changes in the soil properties. From the biochemical indicators, some enzymes, particularly dehydrogenase and acid phosphatase, reacted sensitively. The physical characteristics were not significantly affected by the erosion processes.

scholarly journals Analysis of land-law relations development in the Czech Republic after 1989 in the legal and economic kontext

2009 ◽  
Vol 55 (No. 5) ◽  
pp. 250-256
Author(s):  
J. Bartůšková ◽  
J. Homolka
Keyword(s):  
Czech Republic ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Agricultural Land ◽  
Direct Consequence ◽  
Scale Production ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Land Law ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
Large Scale Production ◽  
Czech Land

Changes in the land law, which occurred after 1948, still influence the whle Czech countryside to this day. Typical features of Czech agriculture, i.e. the fragmentation of ownership of the agricultural land fund and the high share of leased agricultural land, which is a direct consequence of the socialistic large-scale production, continue even despite extensive legal changes after 1989. The changes in the Czech land law after 1989 brought about not only the legal guarantees for owners but also new problems, which are still necessary to solve. An important tool of the solution of the present Czech agriculture problems is represented by land adjustments. The membership of the Czech Republic in the European Union on one hand led to the simplification of land acquisition for some foreigners, however; on the other hand it has not influenced in principle the structure of landowners. Still in 2008, the questions of the atonement of property injustices are finished yet regarding the churches concerning agricultural and forest land. A new civil code, currently in process, which can influence some legal relations to the land, has not been put forward to the Parliament yet.

Creation of detailed soil properties maps of the Czech Republic based on national legacy data and digital soil mapping

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Minařík ◽  
Daniel Žížala ◽  
Anna Juřicová
Keyword(s):  
Czech Republic ◽  
Soil Properties ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Agricultural Land ◽  
Prediction Models ◽  
External Validation ◽  
Soil Mapping ◽  
Digital Soil Mapping ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
Legacy Data

<p>Legacy soil data arising from traditional soil surveys are an important resource for digital soil mapping. In the Czech Republic, a large-scale (1:10 000) mapping of agricultural land was completed in 1970 after a decade of field investigation mapping. It represents a worldwide unique database of soil samples by its national extent and detail. This study aimed to create a detailed map of soil properties (organic carbon, ph, texture, soil unit) by using state-of-the-art digital soil mapping (DSM) methods. For this purpose we chose four geomorphologically different areas (2440 km<sup>2</sup> in total). A selected ensemble machine learning techniques based on bagging, boosting and stacking with random hyperparameters tuning were used to model each soil property. In addition to soil sample data, a DEM and its derivatives were used as common covariate layers. The models were evaluated using both internal repeated cross-validation and external validation. The best model was used for prediction of soil properties. The accuracy of prediction models is comparable with other studies. The resulting maps were also compared with the available original soil maps of the Czech Republic. The new maps reveal more spatial detail and natural variability of soil properties resulting from the use of DEM. This combination of high detailed legacy data with DSM results in the production of more spatially detailed and accurate maps, which may be particularly beneficial in supporting the decision-making of stakeholders.</p><p>The research has been supported by the project no. QK1820389 " Production of actual detailed maps of soil properties in the Czech Republic based on database of Large-scale Mapping of Agricultural Soils in Czechoslovakia and application of digital soil mapping" funding by Ministry of Agriculture of the Czech Republic.</p>

scholarly journals Operational USLE-Based Modelling of Soil Erosion in Czech Republic, Austria, and Bavaria—Differences in Model Adaptation, Parametrization, and Data Availability

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (10) ◽  
pp. 3647
Author(s):  
Peter Fiener ◽  
Tomáš Dostál ◽  
Josef Krása ◽  
Elmar Schmaltz ◽  
Peter Strauss ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Czech Republic ◽  
Soil Erosion ◽  
Water Conservation ◽  
Data Availability ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Specific Knowledge ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
Environmental Threats ◽  
Implementation Techniques ◽  
Consistent Method

In the European Union, soil erosion is identified as one of the main environmental threats, addressed with a variety of rules and regulations for soil and water conservation. The by far most often officially used tool to determine soil erosion is the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) and its regional adaptions. The aim of this study is to use three different regional USLE-based approaches in three different test catchments in the Czech Republic, Germany, and Austria to determine differences in model results and compare these with the revised USLE-base European soil erosion map. The different regional model adaptations and implementation techniques result in substantial differences in test catchment specific mean erosion (up to 75% difference). Much more pronounced differences were modelled for individual fields. The comparison of the region-specific USLE approaches with the revised USLE-base European erosion map underlines the problems and limitations of harmonization procedures. The EU map limits the range of modelled erosion and overall shows a substantially lower mean erosion compared to all region-specific approaches. In general, the results indicate that even if many EU countries use USLE technology as basis for soil conservation planning, a truly consistent method does not exist, and more efforts are needed to homogenize the different methods without losing the USLE-specific knowledge developed in the different regions over the last decades.

scholarly journals The development of regional differentiation of office construction in the Czech Republic: 1990–2010

2015 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-33
Author(s):  
Pavel Domalewski ◽  
Jan Baxa
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Distribution ◽  
Czech Republic ◽  
Questionnaire Survey ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Capital City ◽  
Office Building ◽  
Regional Differentiation ◽  
Key Factors ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
Dominant Position

Abstract The factors that were crucial for the construction of administrative buildings in the regional capitals of the Czech Republic are subject to examination in this article. One primary question is whether the development of office construction reflects the qualitative importance of the cities, or whether there are some other regularities in the spatial distribution of construction. To identify the key factors, controlled interviews with experts professionally involved in the construction of administrative buildings were carried out, and these data were then extended as part of a large-scale questionnaire survey with other experts on the issue. The results have confirmed the dominant position of the capital city of Prague in terms of its qualitative importance, as the remaining regional capitals have less than one-tenth of the volume of modern office building areas. The greatest differences in the construction of administrative buildings have been noted in Brno and Ostrava, despite the fact that they exhibit similar characteristics when considered in the light of respondent-determined factors.

Visible marking of wader nests to avoid damage by farmers does not increase nest predation

2017 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 293-301 ◽  
Author(s):  
VÁCLAV ZÁMEČNÍK ◽  
VOJTĚCH KUBELKA ◽  
MIROSLAV ŠÁLEK
Keyword(s):  
Czech Republic ◽  
Nest Predation ◽  
Agricultural Land ◽  
Positive Experience ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
Trade Off ◽  
Nest Protection ◽  
Vanellus Vanellus ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Ground Nesting

SummaryOnly a few studies have assessed the predation risk on artificially marked nests, or have examined ways of marking nests to avoid destruction by machinery. Until now, however, neither type of study has directly addressed this apparent trade-off experimentally. The impact of marking the nests of Northern Lapwing Vanellus vanellus with thin 2 m-long conspicuous bamboo poles with the top end highlighted with reflective red or orange spray has been tested for three years in two breeding areas of waders in the Czech Republic. A total of 52 pairs of nests on agricultural land, with each pair consisting of one marked nest and one unmarked reference counterpart nest, were monitored for 2004 nest-days until hatching, agricultural operations or failure. The results proved that marking itself does not result in increased nest predation. The nests found in the early incubation stage were under higher threat of depredation, irrespective of the presence of marking. Our results show that it is possible to find a finely-tuned trade-off in nest marking of ground-nesting birds between risk of damage by agricultural machinery and risk of increased nest predation. Our positive experience with Northern Lapwing, and episodically with three other wader species in the Czech Republic, suggests that this direct nest protection could be used effectively for a wider variety of ground-nesting birds.

scholarly journals Weed Species Diversity in the Czech Republic Under Different Farming and Site Conditions

2015 ◽  
Vol 63 (3) ◽  
pp. 741-749 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michaela Kolářová ◽  
Luděk Tyšer ◽  
Josef Soukup
Keyword(s):  
Czech Republic ◽  
Organic Farming ◽  
Chenopodium Album ◽  
Arable Land ◽  
Farming Systems ◽  
Weed Species ◽  
Organic Farms ◽  
Standard Size ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
Winter Cereals

The aim of this study was to explore the composition of weed vegetation on arable land in selected areas of the Czech Republic and to determine the level of γ-diversity. Our survey was conducted at 27 conventional and 35 organic farms from 2006–2008. In each sampled field, one phytocoenological relevé of a standard size of 100 m2 was recorded in the central part of the field. The species cover was estimated. The total γ-diversity was expressed as the total number of weed species recorded. γ-diversity of different farming systems, altitudes and crops was calculated. Subsequently, the species were divided on the basis of their perenniality. In total, 172 weed species were found – 123 and 162 in conventional and organic farming, respectively. The highest number of species was found in winter cereals and at medium altitudes. Chenopodium album was recorded as the species with the highest constancy in both types of farming. In total, 89 annuals, 17 biennials and 15 perennials were observed in conventional farming, and 109 annuals, 23 biennials, 28 perennials and 2 semiparasitic annuals were found in organic farming.

Pre-industrial landscape of the Jeseníky region as a natural and cultural heritage

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaromír Kolejka ◽  
Eva Nováková
Keyword(s):  
Czech Republic ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Agricultural Land ◽  
Local Administration ◽  
Economic Pressure ◽  
Forest Land ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
Industrial Landscape ◽  
The Subject ◽  
State Protection

Small parcels of agricultural land are rare in the present landscape of Czech Republic and become the subject of interests of the state protection of the nature, the landscape and the environment. At the same time, such areas represent interesting subjects for the local administration as attractive tourist object. In the historical territory of Moravia (the eastern 1/3 of the Czech Republic), a regional inventory of areas with preserved ancient land use structure was carried out on all individual cadastral territories (focused not only on small parcels, but also on large aristocratic estates on agricultural and forest land originated before the main wave of industrial revolution Moravia, before 1850. The sites are still subjects to topic economic pressure on land consolidation. Their existence in the future is under threat and is decreasing every year both in number and size. The inventory results are presented on example of the Jeseníky region.

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