On Tuesday, September 16, a discussion entitled Green Roofs and Biodiversity, organized by Calla and the Faculty of Science of the University of South Bohemia, took place at the Horká Vana club in České Budějovice.
Petra Janečková from the Faculty of Science at the USB presented how green roofs can be designed to benefit plants and insects, which species are suitable for them, and how to obtain seeds for regional mixtures. The discussion showed that public interest in green roofs continues to grow. Properly designed and maintained roofs can thus contribute significantly to the development of biodiversity in cities.
This project is co-financed with state support from the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic under the Programme Prostředí pro život. This project was funded under the National Recovery Plan from the European Instrument of Recovery and Resilience Facility.
#BioStřechy
On Monday, September 15, a professional seminar entitled Green Roofs as a Place for Biodiversity was held at the Faculty of Science of the University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice, organized by Calla – Association for Environmental Protection together with the Faculty of Science of the University of South Bohemia. Participants learned about the importance of green roofs for plants, pollinators, and architecture, as well as the possibilities for establishing them using regional seeds. The afternoon was devoted to practical demonstrations – in the 4Dvory city park, we tried out a brushing machine for harvesting seeds and then visited two green roofs: a biodiversity roof on a family house and a sedum roof with herbs sown on a supermarket.
The new school year has just begun, and we have already completed intensive field training with students from the Agricultural College and Agricultural Secondary School Benešov on the topic of water retention in the landscape and the revitalization of watercourses. We spent the morning visiting two examples of revitalization that took place at different locations along the Benešov brook. The students had the opportunity to see the revitalized stream bed and several newly created pools, where we showed them how revitalization contributes to slowing down water runoff from the landscape, but also what to avoid in order to ensure successful restoration. Students also caught aquatic orgamisms. Among the finds were mayfly larvae, but also the predatory water scorpion Nepa cinerea. In the afternoon, we summarized our field findings in a comprehensive lecture on the importance of water in the landscape. We also gave examples of aquatic and wetland ecosystems in our landscape, the problems they currently face, and the possibilities for their revitalization. With the help of samples of several types of substrate, the students were able to test how well different substrate types are able to retain water. Students could verify their assumptions, and see how soil quality affects, for example, the risk of flooding. Using a model of a riverine landscape, we showed how a watercourse in a natural riverbed functions as protection against the formation of a rapid flood wave.
After a year, we have returned to vegetation sampling of the Šumava springs. We have just completed our second three-day field trip, during which we visited 20 springs throughout the Šumava Mountains, from Gerlova Huť to the right bank of Lipno reservoir. However, we still have many new locations and adventures ahead of us. We use vegetation transects to determine whether the vegetation of the restored springs is approaching that of preserved sites that were not drained in the past.
On July 3rd, we monitored an experimental plot on the roof of the Nový Smíchov shopping mall, where we are observing the effect of various treatments, and sowing of several plant species. June was extremely dry and hot, which affected the entire vegetation on the roof. Most of the plants were damaged by water stress. The exception was stonecrops (i.e. plants from the Sedum genus). They are leaf suculents that, due to their special metabolism, tolerate drought very well and were flowering at the time of our monitoring. Plants from sowings thrived better in places where conditions were slightly more favourable, for example, at least partially shaded or more humid. We will continue in our observations.
Our team is conducting field sampling for the Horizon 2020 European research project WILDCARD, which aims to better understand rewilding and spontaneous regeneration processes in areas where land management has ceased, including pastures, meadows, and abandoned fields. As part of this effort, we conducted vegetation surveys in the Šumava Mountains (Czech Republic), covering both dry and wet habitat sites to collect detailed plant biodiversity data. Thanks to the dedication of our team, we gathered valuable data that will contribute to a better understanding of how landscapes recover naturally across Europe. We will continue contributing to this international initiative and look forward to sharing more as the project progresses.
During the last week of June, the students of the partner Agricultural College and Agricultural Secondary School Benešov participated in the first run of the advanced course focused on the establishment of the species-rich grasslands. The week-long event called "Greening Week" took place at the Agricultural College and Agricultural Secondary School Benešov. During the first days, the students learnt the theoretical principles of ecological restoration in the urban environment and methods of establishing species-rich meadows. They also worked on an assignment in which they mapped the urban grasslands in the city of Benešov and proposed methods for improvement of the species composition, and the creation of better connectivity across the urban area for insect species. The next two days were led by the Restoration Ecology Working Group from the University of South Bohemia and were purely practical. Students first tried out mapping of a donor site for collecting a regional seed mixture. They had an opportunity to collect seed mixture using a brush harvester, as well as collect individual species by hand. They looked closely at seeds in the brushed seed biomass using binocular lenses and evaluated the success of the restoration of a demonstration site established this spring. During a one-day excursion, they saw a large-scale restoration project of a landscape park partly using regional seed mixtures, the seed production fields where regional seeds are produced, and a green roof that was sown with species-rich regional seed biomass. We closed the excursion in the Bohemian Karst with a view of the largest limestone quarry in the Czech Republic. We believe that despite the very hot days, the students gained valuable information and experience from the program, and we look forward to seeing them in the next school year. All the girls are eager to participate in the exchange excursion to Norway and will be working hard on their student projects from September.
On Monday 19th May our two colleagues, Anička Müllerová and Kamča Vítovcová, successfully defended their dissertations and thus completed their PhD studies. Anička guided us through the world of succession of wetland and aquatic vegetation in post-mining sites, and Kamča shared her knowledge of the influence of environmental factors on vegetation succession at disturbed sites on broader spatial scales.
