• Energy Research

For the Czech Republic to recover from the effects of past mismanagement, it is necessary to determine how its landscape management can be improved holistically by reinforcing the small water cycle. We conducted a scenario analysis across four time periods using SWAT (Soil and Water Assessment Tool) to determine the effects of land use, land management, and crop rotation shifts since the 1800s in what is now the Czech Republic. The 1852 and 1954 land-use scenarios behaved the most similarly hydrologically across all four scenarios, likely due to minimal landscape transformation and the fact that these two scenarios occur prior to the widespread incorporation of subsurface tile drainages across the landscape. Additionally, the crop rotation of 1920–1938 reinforces the small water cycle the most, while that of 1950–1989 reinforces the small water cycle the least. Diversified crop rotations should be incentivized to farmers, and increasing the areas of forest, brush, and permanent grassland should be prioritized to further reinforce the small water cycle. It is necessary to foster relationships and open communication between watershed managers, landowners, and scientists to improve the small water cycle and to pave the way for successful future hydrological modeling in the Czech Republic.

In the face of future climate change, Europe has encouraged the adoption of biofuel crops by its farmers. Such land-use changes can have significant impacts on the water balance and hydrological behavior of a system. While the heavy pesticide use associated with biofuel crops has been extensively studied, the water balance impacts of these crops have been far less studied. We conducted scenario analyses using the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) to determine the effects of farm-scale biofuel crop adoption (rapeseed) on a basin’s water balance. We found that rapeseed adoption does not support the goal of developing a sustainable agricultural landscape in the Czech Republic. The adoption of rapeseed also had disproportionate effects on a basin’s water balance depending on its location in the basin. Additionally, discharge (especially surface runoff ratios), evapotranspiration, and available soil water content display significant shifts in the rapeseed adoption scenarios.