Recovery of Headwater Catchments and Lakes Affected by the Acid Atmospheric Deposition

Abstract

The region of the Jizera Mountains (350 km2, altitude of 50o 40'-50o 52', longitude of 15o 08'-15o 24', humid temperate zone, Northern Bohemia, Czech Republic) is an important water resource area with a variety of downstream benefits. In the 1980s, headwaters of the Jizera Mts have been declined as a consequence of the acid atmospheric deposition, the die-back of spruce plantations, and commercial forest practices (an extensive clear-cut and use of heavy mechanisation). Strategies of nature protection and conservation (landscape protected areas, nature reserves or protected headwater regions) collapsed because of a very limited focus. After the clear-cut of spruce plantations, Junco effusi-Calamagrostietum villosae became a new dominant community in headwater catchments of the Jizera Mts Reforestation of large cleared areas was complicated and the upper plain of the mountains has been overgrown by invasive grasses (particularly Calamagrostis villosa).