Interventions on land drainage for climate change adaptation – a conceptual case study

A significant part of built single-purpose land drainage is considered as disproportionate, including peat as well as non-waterlogged soils or submontane areas across Europe.  Bearing in mind the ratio of drained farmland in Europe and the USA (17-87%), there persist an unmet potential to design and physically implement appropriate, within land consolidations or similar activities underutilized interventions on the existing land drainage, both on tiles and ditches. Among these interventions, there are many types of Nature Based Solutions (NBS), applicable on agricultural drainage systems or drained land, like constructed wetlands, biofilters, drainage blinding, two stage ditches, controlled drainage, canals revitalization and management. The principles, efficiency and limitaitons of these NBS are documented to some extent (e.g. the WOCAT SLM DATABASE, experimental catchments and sites), nevertheless, the proposals and implementation in practice is unsystematic and so the related real-life operational experience is rather vague.

This study presents a preliminary results from the Lovečkovicko case study (LCS), Northern Bohemia, the Czech Republic, aiming at introduction of practically applicable approaches for analyses and feasible yet conceptual proposals of measures on land drainage. The LCS, consisting of eight tile-drained cadastral units with heterogeneous natural and agricultural conditions, manifold history and various interrests of different stakeholders, stands for a representative example for the application of diverse methods for land drainage systems identification and proposals of related measures. Drainage, soil, geomorphological, landuse and land ownership characteristics and water retention / quality aspects were considered for the delineation and conceptual proposals of the different NBS.

This work also discuss the readilly available, whole country, regional or local necessary related data as well as the need for more detailed data acquisition or monitoring. These data and information should especially serve for the thorough justification and design of the proposed measures, as well as for the precise quantification of the NBS efficiency from the perspective of water balance and water quality as well as from the NBS investment and management costs point of view.