"Blue-green" corridors as a tool for erosion and stream control in highly urbanized areas - case study of Belgrade city

Highly urbanized areas constantly need new surfaces for building of commercial, residential or infrastructure objects. Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, is a large regional centre with a population of 2 000 000 dwellers, covering a territory of 3500 km2. The territory of Belgrade is intersected by 187 streams, with watersheds mostly rural in higher parts, urbanized and highly urbanized in lower parts. Torrential floods that once occurred rarely during pre-development period have now become more frequent and destructive due to the transformation of the watershed from rural to urban land uses. Authorities of Belgrade defined a strategy for erosion control and protection from torrential floods, based on the restoration of “blue-green” corridors (residuals of open streams and fragments of forest vegetation). The restoration of “blue-green” corridors helps the establishment of new recreational areas, the preservation of biodiversity and the mitigation of effects of climate change

Measuring, modelling and managing gully erosion at large scales: A state of the art

Soil erosion is generally recognized as the dominant process of land degradation. The formation and expansion of gullies is often a highly significant process of soil erosion. However, our ability to assess and simulate gully erosion and its impacts remains very limited. This is especially so at regional to continental scales. As a result, gullying is often overlooked in policies and land and catchment management strategies. Nevertheless, significant progress has been made over the past decades. Based on a review of >590 scientific articles and policy documents, we provide a state-of-the-art on our ability to monitor, model and manage gully erosion at regional to continental scales. In this review we discuss the relevance and need of assessing gully erosion at regional to continental scales (Section 1); current methods to monitor gully erosion as well as pitfalls and opportunities to apply them at larger scales (section 2); field-based gully erosion research conducted in Europe and European Russia (section 3); model approaches to simulate gully erosion and its contribution to catchment sediment yields at large scales (section 4); data products that can be used for such simulations (section 5); and currently existing policy tools and needs to address the problem of gully erosion (section 6). Section 7 formulates a series of recommendations for further research and policy development, based on this review. While several of these sections have a strong focus on Europe, most of our findings and recommendations are of global significance.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

PESFOR-W: Improving the design and environmental effectiveness of woodlands for water Payments for Ecosystem Services

ABSTRACT: The EU Water Framework Directive aims to ensure restoration of Europe?s water bodies to ?good ecological status? by 2027. Many Member States will struggle to meet this target, with around half of EU river catchments currently reporting below standard water quality. Diffuse pollution from agriculture represents a major pressure, affecting over 90% of river basins. Accumulating evidence shows that recent improvements to agricultural practices are benefiting water quality but in many cases will be insufficient to achieve WFD objectives. There is growing support for land use change to help bridge the gap, with a particular focus on targeted tree planting to intercept and reduce the delivery of diffuse pollutants to water. This form of integrated catchment management offers multiple benefits to society but a significant cost to landowners and managers. New economic instruments, in combination with spatial targeting, need to be developed to ensure cost effective solutions - including tree planting for water benefits - are realised. Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) are flexible, incentive-based mechanisms that could play an important role in promoting land use change to deliver water quality targets. The PESFOR-W COST Action will consolidate learning from existing woodlands for water PES schemes in Europe and help standardize approaches to evaluating the environmental effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of woodland measures. It will also create a European network through which PES schemes can be facilitated, extended and improved, for example by incorporating other ecosystem services linking with aims of the wider forestscarbon policy nexus

Lag time on torrential catchments in Serbia

Maximal discharge Qmax(p) is the basic input data for designing longitudinal and transversal objects in torrential beds. Calculation of maximal discharge Qmax, on unstudied catchments, is carrying out by usage the theory of synthetic unit hidrograph and SCS methodology for separation effective rain Pe by total rainfall Pb. One of the basic time characteristics of torrential floods was analyzed: lag time tp. Lag time tp was determined on the basis of processing of hydrographs and deriving representative unit hydrographs, on 93 control profiles. Dominant physical-geography characteristics were determined: magnitude of the catchment area A, length of the catchment area along the main stream L, the distance from the centroid of the catchment area to the outlet profile Lc, average slope of the river bed Iu, average slope of terrain on the catchment area Isr. Lag time and dominant physical-geography characteristics were the basis for deriving some equations with regional significance (tp=f(L, Lc, Iu); tp=f(L, Lc, Iu, Isr)). The relation between lag time tp and time of concentration Tc was determined (tp=f(Tc))

Lake Ontario 1985

Depths shown by soundings and isolines ; Contour line interval 5 fathoms (30 feet) ; "Note: This chart ... not for navigation ..." ; Includes charts and diagrams ; Limited ed. of 2000Color1:750,00

Lake Michigan 1980

Negative.; Depths shown by soundings, contours, and gradient tints.; Includes text, tables, insets, and profiles.; "Serial no."Color1:750,00

Lake Superior 1989

Depths shown by soundings and isobaths.; Isobath intervals 50 and 100 feet.; Includes notes, 3 inset maps and diagrams.; Limited ed. of 2000 copies.Color1:750,00

Lake Ontario 1980

Depths shown by contours and soundings ; "Contour line interval 5 fathoms (30 feet)." ; "Note: This chart ... not for navigation ..." ; Includes tables, diagrams, illustrations and 3 inset mapsLake Ontario drainage basin -- Lake Ontario bottom sediments -- Lake Ontario surface currents1:600,00