Restoring Natural Forests as the Most Efficient Way to Water Quality and Abundance: Case Study from Zelivka River Basin

This article shows how to restore Central European natural capital effectively. Water in the landscape is primarily sustained by vegetation and soil, most effectively by natural forests and only secondarily by artificial reservoirs. The authors document these facts using a case study from the Zelivka River basin (Svihov reservoir), which collects surface water for the metropolitan region of Prague and Central Bohemia. With the Energy-Water-Vegetation Method, the authors demonstrate that the cultural human-changed landscape of the Zelivka river basin is able to utilize only about 60% of its solar energy potential. In 1.5% of the territory of the Czech Republic, society annually loses supporting ecosystem services at a level higher than 25% of the annual GDP of the CR 2015. Water retention in the landscape needs to be re-evaluated and addressed in accordance with the thermodynamic principles of life and ecosystem functioning in the biosphere. It is necessary to begin restoring the most efficient natural capital in the landscapes and to return the broad-leaved deciduous forests by intelligent forestation methods to the cultural landscape to the extent justified; this is especially true of the Zelivka River basin, which is Czechia's biggest surface drinking-water collecting area.