0170643 - UEK-B 20020009 RIV SK eng J - Journal Article
Heřman, Michal - Zemek, František
Landscape fragmentation for flood prevention: GIS and hydrological modelling approach assessing forested labscape.
Ekológia. Roč. 20, Supplement 3 (2001), s. 149-157. ISSN 1335-342X
R&D Projects: GA ČR GA103/99/1470
Institutional research plan: CEZ:AV0Z6087904
Keywords : landscape pattern * shape index * rainfall-runoff
Subject RIV: EH - Ecology, Behaviour
Impact factor: 0.192, year: 2001

This paper assesses the influence of landscape patterns and intensity of land use on the retention capacity of small catchments (20-40 km2) in a forested landscape. A combination of geographical information systems with remote sensing and hydrological modelling was used to achieve the aim. An evaluation of the relationships between rainfall-runoff rates and some landscape pattern characteristics in three catchments led to the following findings: A reduction of landscape fragmentation between 1963 and 1997 to one tenth of the former level resulted in an increase in runoff coefficients in 1997, even though more than half of the area of arable land in 1963 had been turned into meadows by 1997.Higher presence of forest cover classes in a catchment did not result in a higher retention capacity of the catchment compared to a less forested one. Catchments with a low degree of fragmentation and an extensive arable land class display the highest runoff coefficients among the three analysed catchments.These results enable us to hypothesise that catchment fragmentation and catchment topology is at least of the same importance for the higher retention capacity of a catchment as the presence of land use categories considered as stabilising factors for balanced runoff, e.g., meadows and forests.
Permanent Link: http://hdl.handle.net/11104/0067727