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Determining the vulnerability of land to degradation is a crucial factor enabling policy makers to take targeted actions. The main aim of this work was to determine vulnerability to land degradation using the Environmentally Sensitive Area Index (ESAI) in the territory of 206 municipalities with extended power (MEPs), regions (NUTS 3) and in the Czech Republic (CR). The other two aims were found out i) whether land degradation is affected by land use characterized by landscape types according to Löw et al. (2006) and ii) whether land degradation occurred in larger territorial units (regions) or scattered across the CR (in individual isolated MEPs). The Environmentally Sensitive Area (ESA) method assesses the vulnerability of an area to land degradation using a composite index containing indicators divided into four thematic groups: human activity pressure and management intensity, vegetation cover and vegetation quality, climate, and soil in the assessed area. The ESAI index is expressed on a semi-quantitative scale ranging from the lowest levels of degradation (land not affected and land potentially affected by degradation) to the highest level of degradation (land at high risk). Most MEPs with a share of more than 70 % of their area were in the category "moderately critical areas" at risk of land degradation were located in the Central Bohemia region (15 MEPs) and in the South Moravia region (14 MEPs). For the whole territory of the Czech Republic, 51 % of the territory was found to be critically vulnerable to land degradation, and 38 % of the republic area was vulnerable to land degradation. Vulnerability to land degradation was strongly influenced by the landscape type. Almost all MEPs with a predominantly agricultural landscapes were critically vulnerable to land degradation, as were about half of the MEPs in the forest-agricultural and urban landscapes and only a few MEPs in the forest landscapes. Given the selected indicators, the MEP seems to be the appropriate smallest administrative unit to assess vulnerability to land degradation in the Czech Republic. The map of individual ESAI values can be viewed free of charge online at http://www.imalbes.cz/vysledek.php. We are currently preparing a proposal for appropriate measures to prevent and reduce land degradation throughout the territory of the Czech Republic, and our proposals are coordinated with representatives of the MEPs and regions.

The choice of suitable biodiversity assessment methods for practical purposes in city planning and decision-making is still a challenging problem. Despite the availability of a wide variety of methods for almost all dimensions of diversity (mainly species and habitat diversity, including spatial aspects), few of them have entered the practical ‘daily’ work. In the example of in-depth examinations in German and Czech cities (e.g., Dresden and Liberec), it was found that the most frequently applied analyses are those of protected species and habitats in urban nature conservation in general, and particularly in city development planning to derive avoidance, protection and compensation measures. Preference analyses (questionnaires, structured interviews) are becoming increasingly popular. Economic calculations of habitat values and the valuation of ecosystem services are still in their infancy. We will present methods that are presently being applied or could be included in a practical methodological toolkit to analyse and valuate biodiversity in urban nature conservation, city planning and decision-making.

River landscapes represent key areas of great importance to human society as they perform many functions and provide valuable services. Traditionally, these areas have been perceived as geomorphological phenomena characterised by specific soil conditions, hydrological regimes and unique habitats. Due to the availability of detailed data, it is possible to perform a spatial delineation of river landscapes by interpreting these data using several different approaches. The results of these different approaches can vary considerably, since it is particularly challenging to define the river landscape along small watercourses for which the availability of suitable data is limited. The main aim of this study is to analyse the various methodological approaches that may be used to define the river landscapes of small streams, and to evaluate the efficiency of those approaches that can be applied in nature and landscape conservation. Two medium-sized catchments in the Czech Republic were selected as the study areas in order to ensure different natural conditions and degrees of anthropogenic pressure. As a result, an approach based on combining soil characteristics and topographic information is considered the most appropriate solution to delineate the river ecosystem.

The objective of this study was to verify a possibility of the assessment of carbon stock above all in forest aboveground biomass in the area of Czech Republic based on Landsat data and terrestrial mapping of land cover. Landsat 7 ETM+ data and method based on vegetation index ND45 were used. Simultaneously the aboveground carbon stock was assessed by expert based estimations of carbon in aboveground biomass in the various classes of landscape cover, derived from Corine Land Cover 2012 data. By comparison of results obtaining by both methods for the whole investigated area in the Czech Republic the differences reached only 4.68% and for forest stands 7.19%. The results of aboveground carbon stock based on the Landsat 7 ETM+ data did not differ distinctly from the assessment of carbon stock for individual classes of land cover for both vegetation cover of the Czech Republic and forest stands.

The exploitation of forest biomass for bioenergy is commonly perceived as part of a broad strategy for climate change mitigation due to the view that forest biomass is carbon neutral. The aims of this study are to distinguish the most widely used definition of carbon neutrality and to identify the most frequently discussed aspects of the concept of carbon neutrality. This research is conducted in the form of a scoping review. The results of the scoping review demonstrated that there is no generally accepted definition of carbon neutrality. Eight main concepts of carbon neutrality were identified. The most frequently discussed aspects of the carbon neutrality concept were temporal and spatial boundaries, scenario-based assumptions, and the source of biomass feedstock. This research provides a comprehensive summary of the concept of carbon neutrality and contributes to the debate regarding forest biomass exploitation for bioenergy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Riparian zones represent an important ecosystem providing a range of functions and services important to humans—for example, biodiversity support, a reduction in erosion risk, or the transport of pollutants from the surrounding landscape to watercourses. At the same time, it is an environment that has been often subjected to significant pressure during the agricultural cultivation of the landscape or the development of industrial and residential activities of human society. Thus, a large number of riparian ecosystems have been disappeared or degraded. The assessment of the overall ecological status of riparian habitats constitutes an important source of information for watercourse management and landscape planning, the aim of which should be to maintain good status or to improve the current unsatisfactory state of these habitats. However, in order to reliably evaluate the current ecological status of the landscape, it is necessary to have information on the reference status, that is, a potentially natural status that would prevail without human influence. For this purpose, a methodology that can determine the potential natural status of riparian zones for Central European conditions was developed. In this study, it was found that approximately a quarter (26%) of all river basins in the Czech Republic reach very low environmental values of the potential natural status of riparian zones and, conversely, approximately 29% of river basins are expected to develop significantly above average riparian zone quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]