Polski
Science, Issue 15/2025
A landscape that retains water – an investment for decades
Oct
In recent years, Poland has been increasingly talking about a water crisis. Droughts are interspersed with torrential downpours, and farmers, urban residents and entire ecosystems are feeling the effects. The causes are many: from climate change and the landscape modifications that exacerbate its negative effects, to the way we use water resources. One thing is certain – we need measures to rebuild the water cycle in nature, which has been degraded by unreasonable human behavior. It is the wider landscape that can be our greatest investment in a secure future.
Why are we running out of water?
Poland is a country with some of the smallest water resources in Europe. According to a 2020 report by the Central Statistical Office, there was 1.6 thousandcubic meters of fresh water per capita in our country (in comparison, Sweden, Finland and Croatia had a score more than 10 times higher). Poland’s rivers are drying up, a high-profile example of which recently became the lowest-ever measured water gauge result on the Vistula River in Warsaw.
Slightly quieter, but on a large scale, small streams are drying up, such as the initial section of the Bzura River in the Lodz area, where research has been carried out for many years by employees of the UNESCO Department of Ecohydrology and Applied Ecology at the University of Lodz. The National Geological Institute has been steadily observing a decline in groundwater levels across the country. These are signs that the system that has developed over thousands of years has been disrupted and no longer works in a way that would guarantee the continued stability of our development.
On the one hand, we have an increasingly warmer climate and longer periods without rain, while on the other hand, we are changing the physiographic characteristics of catchments, such as the density of vegetation cover or soil permeability and absorptivity, by hardening and sealing urban surfaces, making them impermeable to rainwater. This directly contributes to an increase in surface runoff from human-transformed areas, from about 10 percent of all rainfall to as much as 60 percent (Jawgiel and Lukaszewicz, 2017). In addition, we are straightening and concreting naturally meandering rivers on a large scale, converting floodplains into investment plots, or draining wetlands.
The result? Water quickly runs off instead of recharging soils and underground reservoirs, often causing economic and social losses in the process. If we want to reverse this trend, we need to act not ad hoc, but comprehensively. The key is the landscape – because it can become the most durable water storage.
How can landscaping prevent a water crisis?
We often hear that the solution to the problem is retention, or the ability of the environment or infrastructure to retain and store water. This can take many forms:
- Natural (landscape) retention – water retained in soil, vegetation, wetlands, forests, oxbow lakes or small ponds. This is a long-term process that supports biodiversity and mitigates the effects of droughts and floods;
- Artificial (technical) retention – reservoirs, dams, canals and other hydrotechnical developments. They allow to quickly accumulate large amounts of water, but their construction is associated with maintenance costs, fragmentation of ecosystems and the risk of accelerated eutrophication. For decades, the technical approach dominated in Poland, but these solutions, while needed, also have their limitations – high maintenance costs, interference with ecosystems, vulnerability to climate change.
Both forms are important in building retention potential, but it is landscape retention that offers greater guarantees of sustainability. It not only stabilizes river flows, but also recharges groundwater and improves microclimates.
A special role in the development of the concept of landscape as a factor determining the water cycle was played in Poland by the Institute of Agricultural and Forestry Environment of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Poznan, where innovative research on how landscape determines the circulation of energy and matter was developed (including the work of Prof. Andrzej Kedziora and Prof. Lech Ryszkowski). Landscape, according to the definition adopted there, is a system of mutual interaction of natural and socio-economic processes, and the recognition of the processes of energy and matter circulation (including water!) and the mechanisms of their control is the key to sustainable development.
Ecohydrology – linking the processes of nature and the economy
The research developed in the 1980s on the role of landscape in the flow of energy and the circulation of matter (by Ryszkowski, among others) built the
Landscape can regulate ecohydrological processes through interactions between plants, soil and water. Research results clearly indicate that vegetation promotes water infiltration into the soil, reduces the occurrence of surface runoff, stabilizes microclimates, and even sows clouds and induces precipitation, as in the case of the Amazon jungle (Machado et al. 2024). Moreover, landscape structure also determines water quality.
A great example of this is mid-field canopies in agricultural landscapes, which reduce wind speed (as few as 3 trees can reduce wind speed by 30% relative to an area without canopies (Baker et al, 2021) and thus evaporation and the drier effect, promote water infiltration into deeper soil layers, and improve water quality by consuming biogenes not used by crops (e.g., they reduce the concentration of nitrates entering from fields by up to 97.7 percent. (Ryszkowski and Kędziora, 2007), and promote biodiversity (referring to the theory of island biogeography, mid-field canopies can be treated as valuable protective environments, surrounded by anthropogenic landscape; Sobieraj-Betlińska and Banaszak, 2017)!
Understanding the interaction between biotic and abiotic elements and applying this knowledge at the catchment scale has become a priority of the UNESCO Intergovernmental Hydrological Program, where ecohydrology was established. Its pioneer in Poland and around the world is Prof. Maciej Zalewski, PhD, and its development is being carried out, among others, at the University of Lodz in the UNESCO Chair of Ecohydrology and Applied Ecology and the European Regional Center for Ecohydrology of the Polish Academy of Sciences.
These principles are being implemented in many projects across Poland, often co-financed by the EU.
- LIFE EH-REK – or Ecohydrological Reclamation of Arturówek Recreational Res ervoirs in Lodz as a model approach to the reclamation of urban reservoirs. This project used innovative methods to improve water quality in urban reservoirs, including through ecohydrological and biotechnological solutions. The project showed that even in the middle of a large city, it is possible to effectively combine recreation with the protection of water resources. http://www.arturowek.pl
- LIFE Pilica – a project to protect biodiversity, water quality and resources in the Pilica River catchment. It aims to reduce agricultural runoff, improve water quality and renaturalize river valleys by building a platform of stakeholders throughout the catchment. Through activities such as restoring wetlands or vegetation strips next to watercourses, the project seeks to increase the landscape’s ability to retain water to create favorable conditions for many plant and animal species. https://www.lifepilica.pl.
- LIFE RadomKlima – a comprehensive program to adapt the city to climate change. In Radom, demonstration solutions from the small scale (green roofs, rain gardens, infiltration basins) to the large scale (flood control polders, Sequential Sedimentation-Biofiltration Systems) were created to slow down runoff and increase the self-purification potential of water. The project showed how blue-green infrastructure can reduce the effects of urban heat islands, improve the quality of life for residents and reduce the risk of flooding. https://life.radom.pl/pl
Each of these projects proves that investment in the landscape works multidimensionally – enhancing retention, improving biodiversity and supporting climate change adaptation.
An important point of reference is the EU Water Framework Directive, which requires member states to achieve good status for all surface and groundwater. This means integrating water policy with spatial planning, agriculture and forestry. Without a long-term strategy and a consistent spatial policy, a degraded water cycle cannot be restored.
Cooperation and involvement of residents
In practice, effective water management requires the involvement of everyone – from the water sector and urban planners, to the private sector, industry and legislators, as well as citizens themselves (EEA, 2024). Each of these groups has a role to play in the process of conservation and rational use of water resources, especially at the local level. In addition, the Water Framework Directive (2000/60/EC) in Article 14 clearly emphasizes that local residents should be involved in decision-making processes – from access to information to consultation to active participation in activities. Participation increases the effectiveness of the implementation of water management plans, and in many cases determines their success (Kuzior, 2023).
Citizen science, or citizen science, is increasingly being used in this context . This is a method that involves local communities in systematic observation and study of ecosystems. Thanks to it, residents participating in monitoring become attentive observers of the environment, learning through practice. As a result, the level of environmental knowledge and awareness increases. A good example is the WWF’ s Community Water Monitoring program – volunteers equipped with survey kits regularly measure the quality of local rivers.
Time is needed, but so is long-range planning
Restoring a wetland or planting a forest performs multiple roles simultaneously – retaining water, supporting biodiversity and mitigating the effects of climate change – and does so for generations. That’s why landscape retention is an investment for years to come.
To avoid a water crisis, we need an approach that goes beyond ad hoc interventions. Systemic measures are needed – ones that strengthen environmental resilience while serving society and the economy. A landscape that retains water is our insurance policy for the future. But it requires that water managers make an effort to understand ecohydrological processes at the catchment scale, and that our water policies begin to see more of the land side of the water cycle – where the raindrop touches the earth’s surface.
Authors: Konrad Budzinski, Aleksandra Chamerska, Patrycja Trusewicz, Hubert Krzyszkowski, Kamil Osumek, Paweł Jarosiewicz
Literature:
Baker T.P., Marais Z. E., Davidson N.J., Worledge D., Mendham D.S. 2021 The role of open woodland in mitigating microclimatic extremes in agricultural landscapes, Ecological Management & Restoration, 22: 118-126. https://doi.org/10.1111/emr.12466
Jawgiel K., Lukaszewicz J. 2017. The effect of changes in the area of urban greenery in Poznań on the CN parameter of the SCS method and the surface runoff coefficient. Physiographic Research, A(68): 9-18. https://doi.org/10.14746/bfg.2017.8.1
Kuzior, M., Czyż, P., Frątczak, W., Knapińska, K., Izydorczyk, K. (2023). Cooperation with stakeholders of the LIFE Pilica integrated project as a basis for capacity building for implementation of the Water Management Plan. Water Management, 2023(10), 225-229. https://doi.org/10.15199/22.2023.10.7
Machado L.A.T., Unfer G.R., Brill S. et al. Frequent rainfall-induced new particle formation within the canopy in the Amazon rainforest. Nature Geoscience, 17, 1225-1232. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-024-01585-0
Ryszkowski L., Kędziora A. 2007 Modification of water flows and nitrogen fluxes by shelterbelts, 29 (4): 388-400. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoleng.2006.09.023
Sobieraj-Betlinska A., Banaszak J. 2017. mid-field woodlots as refuges of bees. Entomological News, 36(2): 111-123.
Zalewski M. (2000). Ecohydrology-the scientific background to use ecosystem properties as management tools toward sustainability of water resources. Ecological engineering, 16(1), 1-8.
