Small Water Reservoirs, Ponds and Wetlands’ Restoration at the Abandoned Pond Areas

Abstract

Small water reservoirs are one of the basic elements of the agricultural landscape in the Central European space. They are one of the most valuable nature-loving elements of the cultural landscape. In the Czech Republic, they have a long historical tradition. Artificial water reservoirs were probably built in our country in the eighth and ninth centuries AD. Since the beginning of the 1990s, new SWRs, including ponds for fish farming, or the restoration of existing and abandoned ones, have been implemented, thanks to various subsidy programmes, especially the river network revitalization programme. The chapter summarizes the procedures for identification of areas of historic ponds using maps of military mapping on the territory of the Czech lands and their interpretation in connection with water revitalization and restoration projects of the small watercourses, carried out in the Czech Republic since 1992.