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Wood pastures represent specific ecosystems across Europe with diverse ecological, agricultural, and socioeconomic roles. Land-use changes and the cessation of traditional management in conjunction with socioeconomic changes led to shifts in their spatiotemporal distribution. Despite a recent increase in scientific interest, data on historical patterns of wood pastures in many European locations remain insufficient. This study presents wood-pasture habitat continuity and analyzes changes in their distribution over space and time in selected parts of Slovakia. Simultaneously, we analyzed the relation of wood pastures to selected environmental and landscape features. To achieve this, we examined the historical distribution of wood pastures using aerial imagery from the 1950s. We thoroughly examined an area of 16,209 km2 to identify preserved wood pastures. To identify the present conditions and the spatial distribution of wood-pasture habitats, we compared the historical data with recent ortophotomaps. Based on landscape–ecological analyses of historical distribution, we determined prevailing environmental conditions of wood-pasture locations. The findings reveal that over 90% of wood pastures from the first half of the 20th century have now been lost or encroached and preserved in the form of a closed-canopy forest. In most of the encroached sites, we identified the presence of vital core veteran trees. For the identification of wood pastures and further analyses of the environmental variables, the ArcGIS 10.3 program was used; the R software was used for all statistical evaluations. The results show that the studied wood pastures were not established randomly, but were rather set within a certain landscape context, characterized by elevation, soil quality, and distance from settlements.

Advances in remote data acquisition techniques have contributed to the flooding of society with spatial data sets and information. Widely available spatial data sets, including digital terrain models (DTMs) from aerial laser scanning (ALS) data, are finding more and more new applications. The article analyses and compares the heights of the 14 highest peaks of the Polish Carpathians derived from different data sources. Global navigation satellite system (GNSS) geodetic measurements were used as reference. The comparison primarily involves ALS data, and selected peaks’ GNSS measurements carried out with Xiaomi Mi 8 smartphones were also compared. Recorded raw smartphone GNSS measurements were used for calculations in post-processing mode. Other data sources were, among others, global and local databases and models and topographic maps (modern and old). The article presents an in-depth comparison of Polish and Slovak point clouds for two peaks. The results indicate the possible use of large-area laser scanning in determining the maximum heights of mountain peaks and the need to use geodetic GNSS measurements for selected peaks. For the Polish peak of Rysy, the incorrect classification of point clouds causes its height to be overestimated. The conclusions presented in the article can be used in the dissemination of knowledge and to improve positioning methods.

This paper presents an approach for mitigating water-related problems, that relates the retention of precipitation and use of ecosystems, as a tool for improving the quality, quantity and availability of water resources throughout the region. One approach is the determination of the landscape’s hydric potential (LHP). Land cover changes can influence ecosystems in different ways depending on crucial factors that depend on water resources. Thus-far, many studies describe the influence of land cover changes on individual features of catchments and hydrological regime, but few have made an attempt to analysis how changes in land cover can holistically influence processes in catchments. In this context the innovative aspect of this work presents the consequence of land cover changes on water retention expressed by LHP — a general descriptor that is linked with many composite influence factors on water retention. A study was carried out on 33 catchments located in central Europe. Results show increased forest cover having a positive trend in the context of LHP. Conversely, increased urban and industrial areas negatively impact LHP. The presented analysis reveals that a few land cover changes had direct and clearly positive effects on LHP. The LHP had decreased in 21 catchments and increased in 12 catchments. Decreased LHP was generally observed in catchments located on the left side of the Vistula basin where there are more advantageous conditions for agriculture, rising industry and urban areas. The study showed that during the analyzed period, obtained changes of LHP values did not strongly affect hydrological regimes in studied catchments. Our results show that LHP is a very good and useful descriptor that includes many characteristics of catchment and could be used for river catchment management purposes. The landscape’s hydric potential can be used in any catchment in the world.

Urban development causes multiple water losses. Some of them may be ignored but some could have a huge influence on the whole catchment, including soil drought. As urban sprawl rises, space for unaffected infiltration and retention is increasingly limited. The objective of this study was to backcast and to estimate water-retention loss due to urbanization during the period of 1990&ndash, 2018. We used landcover data, meteorological and hydrological data and data on soil water-holding capacity. Water-retention loss was expressed as soil water retention capacity loss, net precipitation loss and total sum of precipitation loss. Historical change in urban extension has led to large impacts on the hydrological cycle of the study area. Progressive urban development caused water-retention losses which range from 3.380 to 14.182 millions of cubic meters&mdash, depending on the methodology used. Hydrological analysis showed the lack of a significant trend (decrease trend) of low flow which is caused by the high percentage of natural land use in the upper part of catchment. Our results show that backcasting of water retention change using CLC data (a) brings new and plausible data on retention loss, (b) is possible to replicate and (c) data used are common and easy-to-get.

Human society deals with floods, drought and water pollution. Facing those problems, the question how to prevent or at least to minimalize the adverse effects of water-related issues is asked of the landscape managers. In this way, any help given to landscape managers seems to be an additional useful tool. Within this paper, an approach leading to mitigation of water-related problems is presented that relates the retention of precipitation and the use of ecosystems as a tool for improving the quality, quantity of water resources and availability throughout the region. One approach is the determination of the landscape’s hydric potential (LHP). This study examines one example of using this method within the conditions of Poland. The results of the research show that national data are entirely appropriate for implementation of the LHP method. Further, this approach revealed the classes of the hydric potential of the Prądnik river basin which was selected as the experimental territory. LHP results reflect the ecosystem attributes of the model river basin; areas of average LHP cover 63.26%, areas of high and limited hydric potential cover approximately 18.3% each. The spatial distribution of LHP means the results of this study provide a baseline for management of the river basin.

Flood protection is considered one of the crucial regulating ecosystem services due to climate change and extreme weather events. As an ecosystem service, it combines the results of hydrological and ecosystem research and their implementation into land management and/or planning processes including several formally separated economic sectors. As managerial and economic interests often diverge, successful decision-making requires a common denominator in form of monetary valuation of competing trade-offs. In this paper, a methodical approach based on the monetary value of the ecosystem service provided by the ecosystem corresponding to its actual share in flood regulating processes and the value of the property protected by this service was developed and demonstrated based on an example of a medium size mountain basin (290 ha). Hydrological modelling methods (SWAT, HEC-RAS) were applied for assessing the extent of floods with different rainfalls and land uses. The rainfall threshold value that would cause flooding with the current land use but that would be safely drained if the basin was covered completely by forest was estimated. The cost of the flood protection ecosystem service was assessed by the method of non-market monetary value for estimating avoided damage costs of endangered infrastructure and calculated both for the current and hypothetical land use. The results identify areas that are crucial for water retention and that deserve greater attention in management. In addition, the monetary valuation of flood protection provided by the current but also by hypothetical land uses enables competent and well-formulated decision-making processes.

This study aimed to determine the link between a hydric potential of catchments (LHP) and the predictability (P) of maximum flow of selected rivers in southern Poland (within the Upper Vistula basin) and Slovakia. The LHP method refers to the ability of ecosystems to slow down runoff and retain water. The LHP method is focused on the analysis of the following indicators, shaping the geosphere at the catchment scale: hydrogeological conditions, soil conditions, meteorological conditions, geomorphological conditions, and land use. The predictability of river flows, calculated as one of the Colwell's indices, represents a measure of confidence with regard to the state of a flood event at a given point. To determine links between the LHP and P, a cluster analysis was used with the Ward method of agglomeration. The mean LHP varied between 1.2 for the Skawa River and 20.1 for the Vistula River. Only the Vistula River has very high LHP. The rest of the investigated rivers had medium and low values of LHP. The mean predictability of maximum flows for all rivers was relatively high (0.54), with the highest value obtained for the Wislok River (0.69) and the lowest one for the Bialka River (0.40). Cluster analysis showed that the studied catchments may be aggregated into four homogeneity clusters: first - catchments with high P and limited LHP, second - catchments with mean P and low LHP, third - with low P and average LHP and fourth - with very high P and medium and excellent LHP. The results are important for the management of catchments, especially for planning of any land use changes and investment projects related to water retention.

In the last five centuries, the inappropriate management of the Vel’ká Fatra Mts. sub-alpine and alpine areas has led to the development of different forms of surface destruction. For evaluation of the dynamics and variability of surface degradation the territory of the Hornojelenská valley was chosen. It is a significant avalanche area. It has clearly been destroyed by avalanches, water erosion and cryogenic erosion as well as anthropo-zoogenic processes. The forms of destruction were mapped on a scale of 1:200 based on the aerial photographs and satellite images taken in 1961, 2003, 2009 and 2012. The total area of degradative morphogenetic forms (DMF) in 1961 was 5.5780 ha, 4.0650 ha in 2003, 4.5752 ha in 2009 and 4.9431 ha in 2012. The DMF reached its peak in 1961. In the mid-1960s, there were ambitions to reforest the highest areas of the study area that led to the decrease of DMF and the development of vegetation. The present exogenous geomorphologic processes are causing a gradual increase of the total destructed area.

Designing hydraulic structures, such as culverts, bridges, weirs, and check dams, while planning new flood inundation areas, needs correct assessment of design discharges. In gauged catchments with long time series of discharges, statistical methods are commonly used based on fixed theoretical distributions and on empirical distributions. However, in ungauged catchments, this approach is not possible. In addition to more advanced methods, which are used today, e.g., rainfall&ndash, runoff models, much more simple approaches are still needed based on regionalization and empirical models. Thus, the objective of this work is to develop a new empirical model for calculating peak discharge expressed as the median of annual peak discharge (QMED). The innovative aspect of this paper is the use of a new parameter, named landscape hydric potential (LHP), as a descriptor of water storage in catchments. LHP has a crucial role as the descriptor of water storage in catchment and, thus, it has an influence on forming discharges. The work was done in the Upper Vistula basin in the Polish Carpathians. This study was carried out in mountain catchments located in the Upper Vistula basin, in the south part of Poland in in the Polish Carpathians. Results show that the proposed model could provide appropriate calculations in changing climate conditions, as well as when land use is changed. The proposed model is simple and effective, for calculating QMED, it needs only two parameters: catchment area and LHP. Since the model has a significant and high correlation coefficient, it could be used for assessing of QMED in ungauged mountain catchments. The determined form of the empirical equation finds application in the entire Upper Vistula basin, for catchments with a surface area from 24 km2 up to 660 km2.

Landscape attributes affect the quantity, quality, distribution and accessibility of water resources. Except for fixed and hardly impacted environmental characteristics affecting the hydric potential of the landscape, it is possible by optimal land use planning and management to modify its ability to infiltrate and detain precipitation. The use of landscape characteristics as an efficient tool in river basin management can improve disturbed conditions in catchments. In this paper, we have focused on the evaluation of the hydric potential of six river basins in Slovakia. Assessing the most relevant landscape attributes in relation to the protection of water resources, we have identified areas with various landscape hydric potentials (LHPs), which should be taken into consideration when developing a river basin management plan. The spatial distribution of LHP categories undermines the customary view that the landscape's ability to infiltrate and retain water is affected by only some of the physical–geographic attributes (frequently presented as hydrogeological bedrock and soil characteristics). The LHP distribution in model catchments is explained through specific combinations of factors having the greatest influence.

As water becomes increasingly scarce, water managers are seeking new and sustainable solutions to water supply problems. Any inappropriate human activity in a river basin can bring about a series of irreversible changes that may completely influence the character of water resources and the way of their downstream usage. The presented methodical principle represents an attempt to solve problems of the international interest in relationship between human activities, the environment and natural resources, particularly water and soil resources. The main idea of the principle is to select areas with the greatest landscape potential for infiltration and retention of atmospheric precipitation. Then, in the areas there follows management of human activities for supporting of precipitation infiltration and retention as well as for minimizing possible adverse environmental and socio-economic consequences. Methodology was used in the upper Vah river basin (Slovakia) which represents a significant territory of the Vah River spring areas.