The use of a former network of ploughed dirt roads owned by municipalities for reduction water erosion on soil in the Czech Republic

Abstract In the Czech Republic (CR), several negative changes in landscape structure before 1989 occurred due to changes in the landscape structure, agricultural intensification, mechanisation, and increased use of agrochemicals. The field roads, borders, draws, retention elements and natural obstacles to surface runoff with significant retention functions in the landscape were ploughed. The resulting extensive land blocks with arable land enabled the rapid acceleration of erosion processes. Due to the high ownership fragmentation of arable land and a lack of financial resources, it is highly time-consuming to overcome administrative difficulties in designing contour-oriented linear erosion control measures (ECM) to interrupt surface runoff and reduce erosion processes. Based on the analysis of cadastral maps, old maps and aerial photographs, we have identified a prospective possibility of using areas owned by municipalities, which are areas of former ploughed field roads (FPFR). The FPFR frequently run along the contour or diagonally across large land blocks. The FPFR are still owned by the municipalities, which significantly accelerates and streamlines the design of ECM by municipalities in these places. We identified these places of the FPFR network for the whole area of the CR. According to the degree of exceeding the maximum permissible length of the slope, we analysed where the placement of elements interrupting the surface runoff on the FPFR can be most effective. The proposed concept can reduce water erosion on 37% of arable land. The average reduction of erosion risk areas is 10.88% per cadastral territory (CT) with a standard deviation (SD) of 19.93%. It represents reduction by 32.59 ha per CT with SD = 73.87 ha and potential reduction of soil loss by water erosion by 107.5 t y −1 per CT.