Understanding the importance of grassland management is crucial for predicting the effects on forage production, pasture and ecosystem stability. Studies about the impact of grassland management in ...temperate humid environments on soil, erosion and aboveground biomass properties are lacking. This study investigates the effect of different grassland managements—no grazing, moderate grazing and heavy grazing—on soil properties, hydrological responses and herbage quality in an organic farm located in Croatia. The results showed that heavy grazing significantly increased soil compaction, structural deterioration, erosion and nutrient transport compared with no grazing. Heavily grazed plots had significantly higher soil organic matter and nutrient concentrations compared with no-grazing plots. Moderately grazed plots had the highest biomass production and the herbage with higher quality compared with other treatments. Significantly higher ash contents on heavily and moderately grazed plots were due to cow trampling. Cow grazing behaviour was a more important factor for plant regrowth and herbage quality than soil properties. Moderate grazing did not induce serious soil erosion problems or reduce soil productivity. Soil conservation measures should focus only on the heavily grazed areas and include the introduction of rotational grazing in combination with various strategies: excluding grazing, reseeding and increasing the diversity of resting areas.
Trace metals in the environment are important pollutants affecting human health, particularly in urban areas worldwide. Phytoremediation as a nature-based solution (NBS) and environmentally friendly ...technology may decrease high concentrations of trace metals in urban soils, protecting public health (especially children) and contributing to urban sustainability. This study examined trace metal contamination of urban soils and trees in six cities in the Republic of Srpska (RS), Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) and investigated the potential of selected tree species for phytoremediation as a NBS for metal-polluted urban soils. Contamination of urban soils was assessed by quantifying the concentrations of 11 trace metals (B, Ba, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Mn, Mo, Ni, Pb, and Zn). To estimate phytoremediation potential of urban tree species, concentration and bioconcentration factor of the 11 metals were quantified in leaves of three common and abundant tree species:
Aesculus hippocastanum
L. (horse chestnut),
Platanus acerifolia
Willd. (plane), and
Tilia
sp. (lime). The results showed that trace metal concentrations in leaf samples did not exceed toxicity threshold guideline values. Further assessments are needed to establish the true potential of the three species as NBS for urban soils.
Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) is a developing country facing extensive land degradation. BiH exists as a decentralized state, where all land (e.g., agricultural and forest soils) and water resources ...are under exclusive jurisdiction of two entities and one district, rather than state‐level legislation. Complex land‐related administration occurs between entities that function independently from each other. The lack of coordination among entities frequently leads to political conflicts over land and limited data exchange which may further exacerbate current land degradation. This article investigates (a) stakeholders' perception of land degradation under complex institutional and policy structures; and (b) the current state of land degradation, with a focus on soil erosion as one important indicator of land degradation across the region. As a consequence of the Civil War that took place in BiH between 1992 and 1995, limited data on soil erosion and land status present additional challenges to those seeking to avoid, reduce, and reverse land degradation. Stakeholders reported that the existence of a policy framework as important to addressing land degradation, but not sufficient if implementation is weak. Decision makers reported that the existing policy frameworks are satisfactory, which was in contrast to other stakeholders. Reliable data are crucial for land degradation assessments and development of strategies and policy frameworks, but also better knowledge and awareness of stakeholder perceptions would foster their implementation. In summary, complex institutional structures underpin the weak communication and cooperation among institutions and stakeholders, which presents significant challenges for sustainable land management in post‐conflict societies.
Environmental Education is essential to promote awareness and facilitate the development of environmental citizens. To contribute to the enhancement of environmental awareness, Iceland, Serbia, ...Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Romania have collaborated in joint educational projects which aim at building capacities on sustainable development, delivering environmental teaching lectures, and developing open educational resources. This article presents past and ongoing collaborations between the mentioned countries, assesses the status of environmental education, and highlights the benefits of international collaboration. For this purpose, information on environmental courses in representative universities from each country was collected, SWOT analyses were performed in each country, and a survey among potential students was carried out. The presented analysis reveals that international collaboration raises environmental awareness and increases the likelihood of becoming environmental citizens.
Wetlands are multifunctional systems performing as nature-based solutions (NBS) for water management. This paper provides an overview of natural and constructed wetlands and their potential to ...support the regulation of hydrological fluxes and water quality. Wetlands can modulate peak flows by storing runoff and slowly releasing it over time, with positive impacts on soil moisture. They can also change the overall water balance by influencing evapotranspiration, infiltration, and groundwater recharge. They can enhance resilience of a catchment to floods and torrents, especially with relative low return periods (<50 years), and safeguard water availability during droughts. Wetlands may remove or reduce a number of organic and inorganic pollutants (e.g., nutrients, heavy metals, hydrocarbons, pesticides) by different physical, chemical, and biological processes developed between vegetation, microorganisms, soil/growth substrate, and water. They have proven to be efficient and effective in improving the quality of water from different sources, such as runoff from agriculture and urban areas, and domestic and industrial wastewater. The overall performance of wetlands is determined by their characteristics (e.g., size, design, type of vegetation), within-catchment position, type and amount of water and pollutants, and local conditions (e.g., climate). A focus on wetlandscape, rather than individual wetlands, is required for optimal water management and maximization of other ecosystem services.
•Wetlands are multifunctional systems performing as NBS for water management.•Wetlands can effectively enhance resilience to floods with low return periods.•Wetlands may reduce the duration and severity of droughts.•Wetlands may remove/reduce organic and inorganic pollutants from different sources.•Wetlands performance is a function of their characteristics, local conditions and location.
Floods are a widespread natural hazard affecting people and their assets in regions worldwide, including Southern Europe. Besides coastal floods, the Mediterranean region is highly prone to flash ...floods driven by short but intense precipitation events. With increasing flood risk due to climate change and socio‐economic conditions, governments are under pressure to reinforce flood protection measures, which could be a great challenge for the weak economies of non‐EU developing countries. This is of particular relevance to achieving international commitments such as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Several policy frameworks have been developed to mitigate flooding risk, at European Union (EU) and global level. These frameworks call for a holistic risk reduction approach where governments, institutions, and households are all responsible for reducing risk. In practice, however, gray infrastructure remains the prevailing flood risk management measure in many countries. Incorporation into national legislation and implementation of the EU policy framework will increase constraints and pressures for non‐EU countries, particularly those strongly committed to becoming EU members in future. This article provides a comprehensive review of policies and measures implemented in four different southern European countries to mitigate flood hazard, and compares governance aspects between EU (Portugal and Slovenia) and non‐EU countries (B&H and Serbia). Understanding governance aspects and the status of flood‐related policy implementation is of critical importance in protecting people and enhancing resilience to climate change impacts. Programs of improvement measures and further integration of sustainable water management with other sectoral policies are required to reduce flood risks.
This article is categorized under:
Engineering Water > Planning Water
Human Water > Water Governance
Science of Water > Water Extremes
Overview of important aspects of water and flood legislative legislation.
The major event that hit Europe in summer 2021 reminds society that floods are recurrent and among the costliest and deadliest natural hazards. The long-term flood risk management (FRM) efforts ...preferring sole technical measures to prevent and mitigate floods have shown to be not sufficiently effective and sensitive to the environment. Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) mark a recent paradigm shift of FRM towards solutions that use nature-derived features, processes and management options to improve water retention and mitigate floods. Yet, the empirical evidence on the effects of NBS across various settings remains fragmented and their implementation faces a series of institutional barriers. In this paper, we adopt a community expert perspective drawing upon LAND4FLOOD Natural flood retention on private land network (https://www.land4flood.eu) in order to identify a set of barriers and their cascading and compound interactions relevant to individual NBS. The experts identified a comprehensive set of 17 barriers affecting the implementation of 12 groups of NBS in both urban and rural settings in five European regional environmental domains (i.e., Boreal, Atlantic, Continental, Alpine-Carpathian, and Mediterranean). Based on the results, we define avenues for further research, connecting hydrology and soil science, on the one hand, and land use planning, social geography and economics, on the other. Our suggestions ultimately call for a transdisciplinary turn in the research of NBS in FRM.
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•The European expert community perspective on nature-based solutions is presented.•12 groups of nature-based solutions relevant to flood risk management are defined.•17 implementation barriers for the 12 nature-based-solution groups are identified.•Cascading and compound barriers call for a transdisciplinary approach to floods.
•The roles of anthropogenic and natural factors on gullying were investigated.•Road construction was the main cause of gully formation in the study region.•“Distance from stream” had a medium ...contribution to gully occurrences.
Losses of large volumes of soil through gully formation lead to serious environmental, societal, and economic problems for human societies. This study establishes a framework based on an artificial intelligence approach to investigate the impact of geo-environmental and topo-hydrological factors on gully occurrences in the Biram region, Iran. The maximum entropy, random forest, and boosted regression trees machine-learning models were applied. The relative importance of variables (RIV) was then determined and gully erosion susceptibility maps were generated. Model results were evaluated using cutoff–dependent and –independent metrics. All models identified road construction as the main cause of gully formation in the study region (RVI ranged between 27% and 34%), and a medium contribution of distance from stream (RVI = 15–18%), lithology (RVI = 12–15%) and land use (RVI = 8–12%). Other factors such as drainage density, topographic wetness index, aspect, slope, profile curvature, elevation and plan curvature showed lower relative importance (RIV < 10%). Planners should pay attention to minimizing gully erosion along roads, so that river systems and downstream communities are adequately protected.
•Developing countries without reliable national data can use global data for LDN.•Challenges in LDN implementation range from institutional to organizational level.•In countries with weak ...socio-economic conditions, land degradation is not a priority.•Current LDN indicators do not identify land degradation due to invasive species.•Important drivers of land use changes in post war countries are migration and land abandonment.
Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) is a key voluntary and aspirational target of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 15 which urges countries to protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss. A first and critical important step in the implementation of LDN is assessing the current land condition using not only active restoration of degraded land, but also targeting land degradation drivers behind the land degradation process. In a first step to achieve these goals, countries were provided a global dataset for three sub-indicators of land degradation: land cover (LC), land productivity dynamics (LPD) and soil organic carbon (SOC). Here, we report on trends in these sub-indicators for the Entity Republic of Srpska (RS) as a part of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which is a key analysis to inform the frame of reference or baseline conditions for the region to evaluate LDN across this region. Global data for LC for the RS indicates a 0.5% loss of forests (6400 ha) over the time period from 2000 to 2010. Of this area, 5000 ha were converted to cropland and an additional 1400 ha was converted to shrubs, grasslands and sparsely vegetated areas. LPD declined over 2.5% (63,500 ha) of the region. SOC declined on land use changed areas by 15.6% (74,609 Mg ha−1) over the same time period. Based on global data, we estimated that 3% of the country is in a degraded state. Based on interviews with local stakeholders in 31 local communities, the primary land degradation drivers were identified and validated by team experts. Depopulation and migration to urban centers were identified as the important underlying drivers of land degradation that most municipalities are facing. The most frequent direct drivers of land degradation across this region were land abandonment, floods, drought, erosion and urbanization. Land abandonment, more specifically, has resulted in conversion of agriculturally productive lands to lands dominated by a wide range of invasive species over the last 25 years. Continued land degradation is underpinned by the lack of understanding by stakeholders of the importance of land as a resource. In evaluating the status, trends and drivers of land degradation for this region, we have identified key areas or "hot spots" that may be targeted for restoration options and may be used to achieve LDN targets by 2030.
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