Catálogo de publicaciones - libros

The “Hula Project”constructed wetland ecosystem in northern Israel up stream of Lake Kinneret. The water budget of this lake Kinneret is controlled by precipitation and human management, especially the regulation at South Dam and the National Water Carrier. Effective management depends on successful collaboration between stakeholders. Currently, this partnership operates successfully, which has positive benefits for the future prospects and general sustainability of the system.

Around 13% of the UK is peat wetland. The perceived value of this land has been low and much has been invested in converting these lands to agriculture and forestry. Perhaps a fifth of the British peaty uplands have been drained and, since 1945, about a fifteenth forested. The traditional view is peat lands adsorb and store rainwater but undisturbed peat wetlands are poor aquifers and act mainly as surface flow systems that do little to moderate floods. By contrast, after drainage, peat land may do more to moderate flood flow because of increased soil storage. However, drainage ditches increase the speed of runoff and encourage erosion. Overgrazing, trampling and burning also encourage accelerated runoff and erosion. Hill farming fosters pollution through the release of organophosphate sheep dip, fertiliser and pesticides, including the Asulam used to control bracken. Peat headwaters produce storm runoff that is acidic but drainage increases the chemical loading of most ions and reduces the pH. Burning moderates pH but forestation encourages acidification. Peat bogs are net sinks for CO, N and many other environmental chemicals but environmental change may reverse this effect. By contrast, disturbed soils are sinks for methane while undrained peat lands are sources. Better environmental management understanding is required to maximise the benefits to stakeholders of the UKs upland wetlands and to minimise potential negative impacts due to climatic emissions of greenhouse gases, hydrological changes especially flooding, water chemistry, and sediment release. There remains a need to assess their continuing role in current and future land use systems, especially hill farming, forestry, water resource management, forestry, tourism, and nature conservation. Current research evidence is ambiguous but the present presumption favours preserving Britain's peat wetlands and some investment in the restoration of the most degraded areas, especially those used for tourism or nature conservation.

In Hungary, headwater wetland habitats have received insufficient attention. This paper gives a brief account of the headwater wetlands of Hungary, their evolution, significance, usability, ecological role, functions and the requirements imposed on them. Wetland habitats sustain a large number of plant and animal species, including numerous rare and endangered ones. For nature conservation, they provide niches for endemic species. From an environmental viewpoint, headwater wetlands play an important role in reducing runoff, improving water quality, and as important landscape-ecological barriers for certain species. Wetland habitats are valuable in education and research and they can be important environmental indicators.

In the Czech Republic, the Ramsar Sites include two headwater wetlands (6,601 ha). Considering the task of headwater control, a database of mountain peat-lands does not exist. However, 1,900 peat-land sites have been identified by inventories done in the 1950-1960s. Unfortunately, no exact information on the historical loss or conversion of wetlands is available. The current Czech legislation on the protection of the environment is based on the concept of a ministerial approach, which is not well suited to ensuring sustainable development. Generally, the existing legislative is effective in the conservation of limited spots. Unfortunately, an integrating approach reflecting global aspects of environmental problems is still missing.

The páramo is a high altitudinal wetland ecosystem in the upper Andes of Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador and northern Peru. It is a reliable and constant source of high quality water and as such, the major water provider for the Andean highlands and part of the coastal plains. Water is used for consumption as well as electricity production. However, scientific evidence suggests that the quality and quantity of this water source may be at risk, due to increasing human interference in the wetland ecosystem. The current study analyses the water balance of two microcatchments near Cuenca, Ecuador. One is covered by the typical natural grass vegetation, while the other catchment is heavily interfered and intensive cultivation, cattle grazing and drainage are taking place. Three rain gauges and a V-notch were installed in each catchment, and one meteorological station in a nearby location. Analysis of the precipitation data reveals that seasonal variability in the páramo is extremely low. This property is a major reason for the sustained base flow, which characterises the páramo. However, evapotranspiration, represented by the crop coefficient, is more than twice as high in the cultivated areas (0.95), compared to the natural vegetation (0.42). The increased evapotranspiration may seriously affect the water production of interfered páramo catchments. Finally, based on water balance analysis, the variation in water storage in the páramo is very low, with a yearly variation of about 25 mm. In the interfered catchment, the storage in variation is even lower, about 15 mm, suggesting a deterioration of the regulation capacity.

This is a collection of short reports on headwater wetlands in Slovakia, Slovenia, Poland, Belarus and Canada. In Slovakia, the convention on Wetlands came into force for the Slovak Republic on 1 January 1993. The Slovak Republic has 1900 registered areas, with 1379 important wetlands. In the group of 12 wetlands of international importance, 2 are headwater wetlands. The key law for nature conservation is the Act on Nature and Landscape Conservation (law 287/1994). Its advantage is the complex protection of nature and landscape. In Poland, peat-lands are very important components of the environment and landscape, because they retain great amounts of water as well as organic matter. The accumulation of organic matter in peat-lands of Poland has been estimated at about 3 million tons. On this terrain, over 200 species of bryophytes and about 650 species of vascular plants have been found. High biodiversity typical for Poland's peat-land flora and the vegetation differs from other peat-lands of Europe. The quantity of massifs and individual small raised bogs in Belarus numbers about 1650. The disposition of raised bogs on the territory of Belarus is affected by physical and geographical and botanical gradients. Their area decreases towards the south direction and great-salient bogs with ridge-pool-complexes are replaced by weakly domed bog massifs with ridge-pool-palsa complexes. For the purpose of preservation of the unique plant complexes of raised bogs, a network of specially reserved natural territories has been created, which covers 248 thousand ha (78 %) of oligotrophic massifs of Belarus. The raised bogs of Belarus are reserved on the territory of 2 preserves, 90 reserves, and 4 National Parks. In addition, 7 reserves of bitumen-hydrolytic raw materials have been created. Slovenia (20.000 square kilometres) has one of the highest levels of precipitation in Europe: the majority of the country receives more than 1500 mm per year and the highest amounts are above 3500 mm per year. This abundant precipitation is caused by moist south-westerly winds along the slopes of the Julian Alps. In these areas, very large hourly and daily precipitation is observed. Daily precipitation exceeds 400 mm. Canada has Wetlands cover 14% (1.48 10 km) of the country and this amounts to 25% of the world's wetlands. Permafrost melting could result 60% increased capacity and retention times. This could result in reduced peak flows following snowmelt and high rainfall events. It could also increase year-round base flows in affected drainage basins.

The framework of Italian legislation affecting the conservation of headwater wetlands has developed within the wider context of landscape and cultural conservation and without special reference to conditions in headwaters.

As a result of increasing population, which has doubled every 25 to 30 years during the twentieth century, pressures on upland resources have increased and watershed degradation has become a worldwide concern. Watershed degradation effects have represented a serious threat not only to the environment but also to the survival of millions of people living in upland as well as downstream areas. Recognizing the importance of upland areas conservation, especially in most developing countries whose economies is depend predominately on agriculture, watershed management has received over the last few decades increasing attention from countries themselves as well as from concerned international and regional organizations. It is clear that much progress has been achieved in watershed management, especially during the period of 1990–2000, where new approaches and methodologies were developed to promote participatory integrated watershed management. However, no clear picture has been drawn on what has been really working and what can be done to improve future watershed management programmes. The latest systematic effort to review and assess watershed management strategies and approaches at a global scale was conducted 18 years ago. It was carried out by FAO through the Expert Meeting held in Kathmandu, Nepal in 1985. Hence, in-depth analysis of watershed management achievements and existing gaps, with particular emphasis on the 1990–2000 experiences, is a prerequisite to further development of watershed management programmes.

Hitherto, wetland research has focused more on the internal attributes of wetlands than on the role of wetlands in wider watershed contexts. It has also concentrated on coastal and floodplain wetlands more than those in headwaters, many of them peatlands, which have greater hydrological significance through potential downstream impacts. Previously, headwater wetlands have been valued mainly for their land use conversion potential. Recently, it has become recognised that these lands provide many valuable environmental services. They influence flood flows, sediment loads, and aquifer recharge; biochemical water qualities and biodiversity. They provide water, peat, timber, grazing land and, locally, aesthetic, cultural, recreational and educational benefits to local communities. Better environmental understanding is required to maximise their benefits to stakeholders and minimise potential negative impacts due to climatic emissions of greenhouse gases, hydrological changes (especially flooding, water chemistry, and sediment release). Towards this end, a new and comprehensive inventory of headwater watersheds is urgently required. Research also needs to be reoriented to focus on the tolerances, exchanges, checks and balances within headwater landscapes and the downstream impacts of changes in wetlands. There is a need for better data, especially from longer-term environmental monitoring, for better management models and for a greater sharing and utilisation of existing information. The effective management of headwater wetlands requires new policy frameworks, changes in land husbandry, more sensitive technological intervention and the full integration of wetlands into environmental management planning. It also needs better systems for community education and more effective participatory processes