CZ-4 :: Adoption of landscape to climate changes (extreme climatic events – droughts, floods etc.)

The retention capacity of landscape is decreasing, because of type of agriculture and forestry oriented on short-term profits (e.g. decrease of organic material in agricultural and forestry soils, mechanic compaction of agricultural soils, decrease of soil quality and permeability ability by water and wind erosion) and because of type of short-term development projects on greenfields. The Ministry of Agriculture of the CR supports research oriented on improvement of production function, while Ministry of Environment takes care about environmental functions. Naturally droughts and floods could be important both from productive and environmental perspective. Therefore the Czech government decided to prepare the Strategy for drought, which should be finished by end of 2016. There is problems of fragmentation of research – for example some research are focused on positive aspects of calcification of soils but the other experts mentions that these by massive calcification decrease share of organic materials in soils and increase the problems with drought.
Specific research questions (following the conceptual model of INSPIRATION):
Land Management:
• There is need of research integrating productive and environmental perspective of soil management
Why: The current situation is too heterogeneous and it has negative impacts on effectiveness of solutions.
Net Impacts:
• Improving the process understanding – especially improvement of understanding of roles of the different bodies of public administration (The ministry of Agriculture on the one side and ministry of Environment on the other side)
Why: The better we understand the decision-making process related to the issue, the more effective and tailored solutions it is possible to identify.
Natural Capital:
• Improve research focused on best practises and demonstration projects related to both floods and droughts - for example restored wetlands small ponds,
Why: The demonstration projects provides the arguments for different types stakeholders that long-term solutions could be both effective and environmentally friendly.
Demand:
• Improve research focused on technical solutions – e.g. monitoring of amount of underground water, positives and negatives effects of new dams, monitoring of water consumption by water flowmeters and financial penalisation of end-users for overconsumption of water (e.g. using water for swimming pool)
Why: The technical solutions can also decrease impacts of floods and droughts.