H-O-H (water) and similar biodiversity produced provisional and regulatory ecosystem services
Part II: TEEB Report, an example on grasslands ecosystem services in the Czech Republic: H-O-H (water) and similar biodiversity produced provisional and regulatory ecosystem services; contribution of ETC/BD, Notthingham University, European Environment Agency (EEA), and United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) on the study of ecosystem services classification CICES
Eyüp Yüksel
Former European Environment Agency (EEA) European Topic Centre/Biodiversity (ETC/BD) Task Manager, on behalf of partner, Turkey, between 2008-2010, United Nationas (UN) National EPR Expert on behalf of Turkish Government, for Latvia, and Lithuania
When we were children as we had been taught by our elementary school teachers, we was think of forests as being the only source of water beyond springs, rivers, and lakes! Today we laearn about also on grasslands biodiversity provided water sources and the resilience of steppe habitat plant species and natural grasslands acting together while provisioning farming and nature conservation together, so one of the strongest instruments in struggling with drought is biodiversity!
One to the fourth of the World is covered by grasslands. Grasslands are plant cover of the earth which feed us. In contrast to humans, animals, fungi, bacteria, and viruses, Plants are independent organisms in the living world. However, animals and human beings are dependent on plants directly and indirectly. Plants are more crucial in managing biosphere than people as they first and directly contact with the Sun (Biochemistry of World begins in the Sun!), to starting the earth’s biochemical synthetic machinery till to our cells, mitochondira to produce muscular energy, glucose, glycogen, even in starvation periods ketone bodies, and for brain thinking energy provided still by biodiversity, the glucose monomer molecule.
Carbon dioxide, a form of carbon store in the atmosphere is an important greenhouse gas, one strategy that can partially combat global warming and climate change is to increase the amount of carbon stored in plants. By increasing the amount of plant life on earth, or altering it to plant types that store the most carbon, more carbon dioxide may be pulled out of the air and stored for a period of time.
Scientists call anything that removes carbon from the atmosphere a ‘sink’. In order to be effective in combating climate change, the sink must be large enough and the carbon must stay in the sink. So what is important for climate change is not the amount of carbon exchanged between the atmosphere and plants, but how much carbon stays in the total forest and total grassland ‘sinks’. Moreover, the natural deposits of methane gas makes bigger threat on the planet compared to carbon release to the atmosphere. That is, 1 unit of CH4 is more dangerous compared to 1 unit of CO2.
There is growing concern over the conservation and management of European wet grasslands. Meanwhile, Turkey’s grasslands are mainly Anatolian grasslands, the drylands. The maintenance of the European wet grassland landscape, including floodplain meadows and coastal grazing marshes or pastures, through traditional low-intensity farming has conserved a habit supporting internationally important plant and animal communities, including many rare species. However, land use changes such as flood defence, land drainage, agricultural intensification and neglect have caused a considerable reduction in the extent and biodiversity of European wet grasslands.
The international importance of the habitat for biodiversity conservation has recently been recognised with its inclusion in the European Union Habitats and Species Directive and the Convention on Biological Diversity fostered by the United Nations. This volume thoroughly examines European perspectives of wet grassland ecology in order to encourage an integrated approach to contemporary issues. Important topics covered include the status of wet grasslands in Europe, their biodiversity (plants, invertebrates and birds), hydrology and management (especially for conservation objectives), and the restoration of this threatened habitat. It combines prescriptive, analytical and reviewing contributions, including case studies from across Europe. As such, this book will appeal equally to academic institutions and professional practitioners.
The size of the difference in the total carbon storage between grasslands and woodlands depends not just on the amount of land covered by the plants, but on the capacity of the individual ecosystems to store carbon, and the depth to which the carbon sink is tested. The sinks can be the plant material above ground, below ground (roots), and soil that is enriched in carbon by dead plant material.
Based on data from typical perennial grasslands and mature forests in Australia, forests are typically more than 10 times as effective as grasslands at storing carbon on a hectare per hectare basis.
However, still I am not sure whether conservation of halophytic steppe plant species or the mixed forests in Turkey would be preferred most as large quantities of potential dry areas could be restored by the resistant halophytic native plant species covered steppe habitats or tree species. I mean depending on location, ecosystem, EUNIS habitat type, a woody small but stronger resistant steppe species which loves salt, and resistant to drought compoared to a high quality of a tree species located in mixed forests, but in this case isolated from its own ecosystem, and habitat. Besides this topic European Union and Eastern Europe and countries such as Turkey should also classify, asses, map, and report species and habitat diversity in line with their variable restoration ability, and further potential in accordance with genetic manipulation whether it is required in due course. Otherwise the decision-makers in the EU Commission and EU Governments could not weigh the importance of biodiversity beyond its economic value.
So in a way, even a keenly designed economic valuation of large ecosystem areas of Nature 2000 sites, ecosystem assesments, in conjunction with EC Habitat Directive ANNEXES, and CICES Classification, environmental
accounting would become nonsense in some, even many cases, and many cases, where the World has severe potable water provision, and in poor crowded cities the poor has to fight against microbes to cope with epidemic diseases in a polluted water use environment. Thus the World, the businessmen, OECD, the World Bank, UNDP, the most rich finance capital leaders would chagce their relevant policies in this respect to pass tyowards a more tolerable World. Otherwsie the expense will exceed those of present in the near future, as the exponentially grown World population will not be able to handled even by almost a hundred of the most reach family leading the World via influencing governments.
Carbon is continuously exchanged between various elements of the earth: atmosphere, soil, ocean and life, which is predominately plant material. The length of time it takes for the carbon to be exchanged depends on the process involved. In the process known as
photosynthesis, a photon movement process catalyzed by the SUN, as in the form of sunlight where plants generate their own ‘food’ by absorbing carbon dioxide (CO2), water (H2O) and sunlight to create macromolecule sugars, starch. Excess oxygen is released, and carbon is stored in the sugars (the bigegst one is starch!, the plant sugar polymer, synthesized by plant’s leaves via redox reactions (electron transfers) corresponding to big sugar glycogen in mammalian liver) (particular combinations of carbon (C), hydrogen (H) and oxygen (O) in the plant material.
In AustralIA, over the long haul, more carbon stays in the tree sink than in the grass sink. Some Australian native eucalyptus forests store up to ten times more carbon per hectare than Australian native and introduced grasslands – both above and below ground. Turkey, from now on can investigate a comparison of her grass cover and forest cover according to this metabolic, and physiologic manner, and the actual corresponding vegetation covers in quantites, if required. Then Turkey may decide the priority of whether conservation of grasslands, or forests with respect to water consumption needs per annum.
For Australia, in order for grasslands to have a greater carbon stock than an equivalent acreage of Australian forest, the roots of a summer pasture grass such as kangaroo grass, panic or weeping grass, would have to contain more than 10 times the mass of the grass that you can see above the ground, which is not the case. Yet I do not know whether very deeply anchored roots of Lake Tuz salt loving steppe woody plants can compete with Aurstrailan forest in providing water.
Whereas C (Carbon) can also be stored in the soil itself in the form of old organic matter. Depending on the depth of soil investigated, the nutrient level of the soil and the availability of water, grassland soil can have either a similar or much lower amount of carbon than does the soil beneath forests.
As an example, studies done in 1999 and again in 2005 show that reducing the amount of tree cover tends to decrease the amount of organic carbon in deep soil sinks.
The 2005 study showed that about 1 metre underground, grassland sites contained
only 25 tonnes of carbon in the soil per hectare compared with the soil in treed savannah sites, which stored
30 to 70 tonnes per hectare.
Anyway, Turkey, one of the founder countries of the OECD, as far as I see, still have not launched a soil biodiversity and soil organic carbon content comparison working programme, and monitoring at the largest scale, i.e. on the territory!
Climate Regulation Ecosystems influence climate both locally and globally. At the local scale,
changes in land cover can affect both temperature and precipitation. At the global scale, ecosystems play an important role in climate either by sequestering carbon (e.g., in forests,
grasslands and marine ecosystems) or by emitting greenhouse gases (e.g.,
forests destruction by fire and melting permafrost). Forests, and the services they provide, are particularly vulnerable to overexploitation and habitat degradation.
The potential increase of water retention capacity in the ponds of the Wyskoć catchment in western Poland is estimated and presented. Only water bodies having area smaller than 2 ha were taken into consideration. There are 638 ponds in the Wyskoć catchment, from among wetland and
grassland ponds are the most numerous (they both constitute about 59% of all water bodies). The analyzed ponds retain above 562x103 m3 of water. However, the amount of retained water could be increased by 886x103 m
3 (in relation to current pond retention) if pond retention is considered and by other 880x103 m3 in case of groundwater retention in areas adjoining. The increase of water level in ponds from 0.5 to 1.5 m due to damming water in the outflow or retention of drainage water so far unproductively discharged out of the catchment area was considered as a potential source of retained water.
The highest relative increase of water retention in ponds and in adjoining areas could be obtained in midfield and farmstead ponds with the smallest average area.
However, for the smallest water bodies with surface area less than 0.5 ha, the potential relative increase of groundwater retention is higher than the retention increase in the pond itself.
This means that the smaller the pond and the smaller value of current water body retention, the bigger relative increase of groundwater retention in the areas adjacent to pond in relation to the increase of the water level in pond.
What about national family farming recommended by Ankara University Faculty of Agriculture, and FAO to Turkey? Would it be better to keep farming enterprise scale at a constant level wihich is optimised for water provision efficieny, instead of producing fruits and vegetables in large industrialized agricultural lands by the rich Turkish private sector, or smal scale European Union type biodiversity farms managed by poor families who have their own small enterprise, in contarsty to migrating workers from South eastern Anatolia per season?
In this respect Ministry of Forestry and Water Issues and Ministry of Food Agrciculture of the Republic of Turkey could collaborate eacfh other to calculate the optimimum size of national family farming entities over the territory. Accordingly each Ministry can determine the EUNIS classes covered on them, and the most conveiennt EMERALD and Natura 2000 sites. Turkey’s EU Corine Land Cover(CLC) map had already been prepared by the Ministry of Agriculture, so this map make easirer managing, monitoring, and follow-up of water and biodiversitry in food proıdcution sites at national level.
The results proved that the small ponds could be very valuable elements of a landscape influencing water regime of agriculturally managed areas. They should be protected and used for water storage. The presented method could be useful to fast, easy and cheap macro-scale estimation of potential water capacity of water bodies.
What is TEEB?
Many do not familiar the abbreviation TEEB, in Turkey, though I wish so! TEEB is the abbreviation for The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) is a global initiative focused on “making nature’s values visible”. Its principal objective is to mainstream the values of biodiversity and ecosystem services into decision-making at all levels. It aims to achieve this goal by following a structured approach to valuation that helps decision-makers recognize the wide range of benefits provided by ecosystems and biodiversity, demonstrate their values in economic terms and, where appropriate, capture those values in decision-making. United Nations (UN) Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), TEEB, CICES Ecosystem Classification System, and the various tasks of ETC/BD focused on the assessment, classification, and the use of ecosystem services and their extensions, impact on the best fit use of European policies, for each sector to be used by the European Union (EU) Commission, EU member governments, and the European Parliament. OECD-Europe, ETC/BD, and CBD tasks are coincide each other very frequently. OECD is the leading organisation in determining agri-environmental biodiversity indicators where European Environment Agency (EEA) and its Topic Centre on Biodiversity (ETC/BD) is leading analysing organ ecosystem services in Europe mainly in large protected ecosystems in Natura 2000 sites.
In the last years the ETC/BD emphasized its priority on grassland ecosystems and in general farming biodiversity, in other words agriculture related biodiversity, upon its common decision making meetings with the EEA, called ETC/BD Management Meetings held two times a year, in Paris or in any other ETC/BD member country.
Accordingly, ETC/BD requested from its Czech partner analysis of Europe’s grassland ecosyetems via examininmg the grasslands in the Czech Republic. This work was done by Prag University and the Czech nature conservation agency AOPK, an organisation containing very highly experienced and skilled experts, and managers in Europe, such as Dr. Jan Plesnik, and high level ministry manager Michael Hossek respectively.
EEA IEEP and Grasslands Assessment Reports in Europe: some facts and figures on the history of EEA and Turkey relationships
Dr. Jan Erik PETERSEN, before Turkey was a member of EEA, met with Eyüp Yüksel (EPASA of Turkey) in OECD Zurich Working Groups Experts. Jan proposed Mr. Yuksel to gathering and assessing of the Turkish grasslands, farming areas, vineyards, arable lands, and their corresponding biodiversity, and other agri-environmental issues, etc. which is followed by his collaboration with IEEP, ECOLOGIC, European Grasslands Federation (EGF), and so on.
In the meantime, Lake Tuz is one of the amazingly interesting wetland and steppe grasslands in EEA countries where EEA Executive Director Mr. Gordon McINNES visited for EEA’s ONE Project, namely Our Natural Europe Project. Besides this, many scientists, academicians, and NGOs from the Netherlands, and Germany have interested in Turkish grasslands, semi-natural habitats, such as Professor Peter Veen, founder of VEENECOLOGY dedicated to East Europe grasslands, and steppe habitats, the Netherlands, Dr. Martien Lankester, the founder of AVALON (in fact, a physican interested more in organic farming) the Netherlands, in order to facilitate Turkey’s EU membership, and conservation of seminatural grasslands, meadows, steppe indispensable habitats, as many in Turkey sees such habitats merely a drought poor vegetation having no aesthetic rescreational value. As a tradition, Turkish people likes much forests, and coastal zones.
According to ETC’BD works during Turkey’s membership and partnership, a grassland study carried out by the ETC/BD Czech partner AOPK, ecosystem services provided by grasslands has been expected, and classified for Europe, the case is Czech Republic.
They were semi-natural grasslands. In Turkey natural ecosyetsm takes the lion’s share, though in many semi-natural grasslands overgrazing still be a majör problem. Our Czech partner found water ecosystem service as provisional service provided by grassland ecosyetem biodiversity, as drinking, irrigation, and cooling according to their table denoting “Classification of ecosystem services (TEEB 2010) PROVISIONING SERRVBICES Column oın the Table. In Altınekin Lake Tuz town, our organisation, the Turkish partner of the ETC/BD Consortium, EPASA only examined the irrigation and coping with drought capacity of water.
They have preferred “Habitat approach to ecosystem assessment”
In a pilot study (Vačkář et al. 2010), they applied a habitat approach to ecosystem accounting which is based on a classification of habitat types. Grassland habitat types are regarded as ecosystem assets which provide vital ecosystem services. They defined grassland ecosystems as habitats dominated by grasses, herbs and sedges. They identified broader grassland natural habitat type categories, spanning the continuum from wetlands to rock succulents. It would better for also Turkey and Turkish natüre conservation, water provisioning organisations to establish a god working backbone of Habitat based ecosystem approach in family farming, food provision, small sized poor forestry villagers. As on emay see our European EU member partners do not isolte water, soil, biodiversity, food, fiber for textile, wood for moble (such as an IKEA decorative chairs, tables, or the same produced in Siteler, in Ankara, Turkey!) from each other! Turkey must be careful beyond her EU membership, and negotiations with EU Commision and EU Parliament!
The real membership comes from and will emerge from nature conservation and ecosystem services provided by biodiversity and an actual
In situ (on the site depending on, and satisfying movement conditions of species, corridor economics, paleonthology, geology, and ecology) National Parks, Special Environmental Protection Areas (SEPAs) of Turkety and (Council of Europe, Strassbourg, not Brussels!) CoE’s EMERALD, EU’s Natura 2000 networks, the biggest protected area network in the world. In the meantime, Turkey can train EU data professionals and teach relevant EU natüre reporting organisations conservation-based biodiversity data handling/assessment, and reporting to the EU, and its responsible institutions. In fact, Turkey usually checks for nature conservation technics and pure nature and biodiversity data colelction, assesment, reporting and mapping two times, strictly which is so far has been ignored by the EU nature data assessing and reporting agencies.
In my eyes, Turkey’s priority should be establishing a very close cooeperation with the robust, dymanic ECNC, EUROSITE, ENCA, EFNCP, and similar field, and local people directly working expertise organisations in the public, inm the natural and farming areas, instead of official bureaucratic data handling, convention analysing, environmental legislation, and negotiation institutions and press. This choice will strengthen and make easier Turkey’s science experience oriented towards an actual nature conservation style, and a concrete way towards a possible EU membership with its costs and benefits mutually. In other words, nowadays even a small EU membership possibility for Turkey could be won not on the tables, and chairs, but in the field amongst living people!
Soil water retention influences many soil properties and soil hydrological processes. The alpine meadows and steppes of the Qilian Mountains on the northeast border of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau form the source area of the Heihe River, the second largest inland river in China. The soils of this area therefore have a large effect on water movement and storage of the entire watershed. In order to understand the controlling factors of soil water retention and how they affect regional eco-hydrological processes in an alpine grassland, thirty-five pedogenic horizons in fourteen soil profiles along two facing hillslopes in typical watersheds of this area were selected for study. Results show that the extensively-accumulated soil organic matter plays a dominant role in controlling soil water retention in this alpine environment. We distinguished two mechanisms of this control.
With agriculture covering half of the EU’s land area,
Europe’s biodiversity is to a large part inextricably linked to agricultural practices. The mosaic of habitats resulting from traditional farm management favoured a diversity of plant and animal species across Europe and it is estimated that 50 % of all species in Europe depend on agricultural habitats.
Change in agricultural land use is a major cause for the decline of biodiversity in Europe. This change is characterised by widespread intensification of farming systems on better land and abandonment or afforestation of poorer land.
Cropland can be understood as land with regularly or recently cultivated agricultural, horticultural and domestic habitats.
Areas where farming practices are associated with high biodiversity value are qualified as
High Nature Value (HNV) farmland. HNV farmland is characterised by a high proportion of semi-natural vegetation with a mosaic of low intensity agriculture and semi-natural structural elements (e.g. field margins, hedgerows, stone walls, patches of woodland or scrub, small rivers, etc.), as well as farmland which supports rare species or a high proportion of European or world populations. The estimated share of
HNV farmland within the EU27 is about
32 %
Grassland ecosystems are areas covered by grass-dominated vegetation with little or no tree cover and include meadows, steppes and grasslands grazed with a variable intensity. European grasslands are among the most species-rich vegetation types (up to 80 plant species/m
2) in Europe and have great conservation value.
Grassland ecosystems cover pastures and (semi) natural grasslands and land dominated by forbs, mosses or lichens.
EC Annex I of the Habitats Directive lists 45 grassland and meadow habitats from different types: natural, semi-natural, calcareous, dry, mesophile and humid; this reflects the high diversity of grasslands and the fact that most of them have been modified, created or maintained by agricultural activities.
It is amazing and frustrating that In Turkey almost no one working on Turkish possible EU membership and candidacy of Turkey knows whether such grazing, food providing areas are included tıo EC Nature Directives of not.
Europe’s grassland butterflies have declined by 50 % since 1990 and this reduction shows no sign yet of levelling off. Some 235 species which are covered by the EU Habitats Directive are linked to grassland ecosystems. Of this 28 % of amphibians, 12 % of reptiles and 16 % of mammals are threatened with extinction at EU level.
Ecosystem services which grasslands are expected to provide
Ecosystem services provided by semi-natural grasslands, even though not further quantified in the chapter 3. We review basic aspects of different classes of ecosystems services (Table 1) with regard to ecosystem services provided by semi-natural grassland habitats. Where available, estimates of biophysical quantities or economic value are presented. Table 1. Classification of ecosystem services (TEEB 2010).
PROVISIONING SERVICES
1 Food (e.g. meat, milk, honey)
2 Water (e.g. for drinking, irrigation, cooling)
3 Raw Materials (e.g. fodder, fertilizer, bioenergy)
4 Genetic resources (e.g. medicinal purposes, gene banks)
5 Medicinal resources (e.g. biochemical products, models & test-organisms)
6 Ornamental resources (e.g. décorative plants) REGULATING SERVICES
7 Air quality regulation (e.g. capturing (fine)dust, chemicals, etc)
8 Climate regulation (C-sequestration and storage, greenhouse-gas balance)
9 Moderation of extreme events (e.g. flood prevention)
10 Regulation of water flows (e.g. natural drainage, irrigation and drought prevention)
11 Waste treatment (especially water purification, nutrient retention)
12 Erosion prevention (e.g. soil loss avoidance, vegetated buffer strips)
13 Maintenance of soil fertility (incl. soil formation)
14 Pollination (e.g. effectiveness and diversity of wild pollinators)
15 Biological control (e.g. seed dispersal, pest and disease control) HABITAT SERVICES
16 Maintenance of life cycles of migratory species (e.g. bio corridors and stepping stones)
17 Maintenance of genetic diversity (especially in gene pool protection) CULTURAL & AMENITY SERVICES
18 Aesthetic information (e.g. harmonic agricultural landscape)
19 Opportunities for recreation & tourism (e.g. agro-tourism)
20 Inspiration for culture, art and design
21 Spiritual experience
22 Information for cognitive development
Food provision Grasslands are an important source of food resources, namely
meat,
milk or
honey. There is some evidence that livestock performance can be improved by presence of semi-natural herbs and legumes. Although pasture on managed grasslands provides usually forage of better quality, effects on milk and meat of
forage from semi-natural grasslands have been documented. For example, sensory properties and texture of cheeses can be linked to botanical diversity of grasslands (Coulon et al. 2004). Meat nutritional quality received also considerable attention with regard to effects on
human health.
The content of polyunsaturated omega-3-fatty acids can be promoted by shifting concentrate feeding to pasture forage.
Professors Dr. Canan KARATAY, Dr. Yavuz DİZDAR, and Dr. Ahmet Rasim KÜÇÜKUSTA most often emphasized this fact! So this more important for Turkish people than those of other sectors use like building houses, skyscrapers, tourism enterprises, highways at the expense of rural farming areas, golf playing areas, sport buildings, briefly speaking land speculation (for the benefit of a limited size of people, and in a very limited period only!) in big crowded urban sites and rural areas. Unless otherwise grasslands could not protected properly, the medical expenditures which must be allocated to the health of Turkish people will exceed the annual budegets of the Turkish Governments drastically!
While digestibility of forage from semi-natural grasslands is usually lower than digestibility of forage from managed grasslands, forage from semi-natural grasslands contains beneficial components like vitamin E, carotenes or terpenes (Hopkins 2009). Grasslands have effects on surface water as well as groundwater quality and recharge. The main pressures on groundwater include use of agricultural nitrogen fertilizers and pesticides. In addition land abandonment also could be threat for Turkish grasslands as they would not be managed, grazed (depopulated Turkish villages) they will loss ther biodiversity, so became almost a monoculture vegetation seen in many areas of Central Anatolia, both slopes, and lowlands.
Survey on grassland ecosystem services BIOENERGY Availability Level
The natural levels of nitrates in groundwater are low, typically less than 10 mg L-1 NO3 (EEA 1999). Conversion of arable land to grasslands usually results in reductions of groundwater nitrate concentrations in shallow aquifers as the nitrogen outflow from permanent grasslands, even fertilized, is 10 times lower than from arable land (Jankowska-Huflejt 2006). 2.3 Raw materials Semi-natural grasslands provide forage, fibres and increasingly is also recognized their potential to provide bioenergy. Concerning forage quantity, several studies have provided the evidence that species-rich grasslands achieve higher biomass and hence hay yields (Hooper et al. 2005, Bullock et al. 2007). Harrison
et al. (2010) identified provision of fibres among one of the key contribution of semi-natural grasslands and agro-ecosystems in general. Bioenergy provision by combustion of biomass from semi-natural grasslands is an alternative use of grasslands (Tonn et al. 2010).
The COST:
Bioenergy from semi-natural grasslands is not usually associated with negative environmental impacts such as greenhouse gas emissions or land use change induced by bioenergy crops on arable land.
The biomass harvested from grasslands is usually used for biogas generation by anaerobic fermentation. Probably the more suitable option for mature herbaceous biomass from semi-natural grasslands is the combustion as the combustion technology has been successfully adapted to the particular physical properties of herbaceous biofuels (Tonn et al. 2010). However, herbaceous biofuels contain more ash and nitrogen than wood fuels and therefore their combustion contributes to air pollution.
Genetic resource Semi-natural grasslands cover probably the most diverse habitats in Europe and therefore are extensive repositories of biodiversity and genetic materials. Semi-natural grasslands in Europe contain and exceptional diversity of plants, insects (e.g. butterflies), birds or fungi. Plant populations in European semi-natural grasslands exhibit a strong pattern of genetic differentiation and erosion (Picó and van Groenendael 2007). Genetic diversity is generally negatively related to fragmentation of grasslands and current human population density (Helm
et al. 2009). Medicinal resources Semi-natural grasslands have been traditionally sources of medicinal plants and other medicinal resources. Pharmaceutical use of medicinal and aromatic plants (MAPs) is connected with the content of active substances such as oil or tannins (Dušek et al. 2010).
References
European Environment Agency ETC/BD page
http://biodiversity.europa.eu/topics/ecosystems-and-habitats/grasslands
http://bd.eionet.europa.eu/Consortium/index_html
Survey on grassland ecosystem services Report of the European Topic Centre on Biological Diversity, Iva Hönigová, David Vačkář, Eliška Lorencová, Jan Melichar, Martin Götzl, Gabriele Sonderegger, Veronika Oušková, Michael Hošek, Karel Chobot
Journal of Hydrology,
Volume 519, Part D, 27 November 2014, Pages 3086–3093
Organic matter controls of soil water retention in an alpine grassland and its significance for hydrological processes,
Fei Yanga, b,
Gan-Lin Zhanga, b, , ,
Jin-Ling Yanga,
De-Cheng Lia,
Yu-Guo Zhaoa,
Feng Liua,
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http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S002216941400849X
Ecosystems (2004) 7: 729–739 DOI: 10.1007/s10021-004-0047-5 729
Soil Organic Carbon and Water Retention after Conversion of Grasslands to Pine Plantations in the Ecuadorian Andes
Kathleen A. Farley, Eugene F. Kelly, Robert Hofstede, Center for Global Change, Duke University, Durham, 90568, NC 27708, USA
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Polish J. of Environ. Stud. Vol. 16, No. 5 (2007), Introduction One of the top priorities regarding water retention is to maintain water from spring thaw and precipitation in all kinds of ponds, water holes, land lows and pits of gravel, clay and sand [1-3].
*Corresponding author; e-mail: radjusz@au.poznan.pl nomical way without any costly investments [5-7]. These Assessment of Water Retention Capacity of Small Ponds in Wyskoć Agricultural-Forest Catchment in Western Poland R. Juszczak1 *, A. Kędziora2 , J. Olejnik1 1 Agrometeorology Department, A. Cieszkowski Agricultural University of Poznań, Piątkowska 94b, 60-649, Poznań, Poland 2 Research Centre for Agricultural and Forest Environment, Polish Academy of Science, Bukowska 19, 60-809, Poznań, Poland Received: January 11, 2007 Accepted: April 26, 2007
http://www.pjoes.com/pdf/16.5/685-695.pdf
Australian Chief Scientist, Australian Government, Which plants store more carbon in Australia: forests or grasses? Bureau of Rural Science, (2008), http://adl.brs.gov.au/forestsaustralia/facts/type.html
Australian Government, (2007), National Inventory Report Vol 2 Part g, Department of Climate Change
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http://www.chiefscientist.gov.au/2009/12/which-plants-store-more-carbon-in-australia-forests-or-grasses/
Lehninger, Biochemistry Textbook
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