Communism versus Capitalism, as far as erosion is concerned

Abstract

The aim of this thesis is to prove that the difference between former political rule on either side of the Czech-Austrian border has caused a difference in the rate of erosion. The Czech Republic had communist influences after the Second World War, and this caused strong land consolidation in the Czech farm parcels. This while the Austrian parcels did not change this much. The theory is that soil flowing downhill encounters more parcel boundaries on the Austrian side. A parcel boundary forms a natural barrier that hinders erosion and therefore the Austrian side should experience less erosion. To achieve the aim of this thesis the following three sub questions were conceived, (1) what are the differences in parcel characteristics on either side of the border, (2) what is the rate of erosion on either side of the border and how big is the difference and (3) with climate change in mind, what does a future prediction on erosion look like? Erosion was modelled using the so-called WS Model, this results in a raster map with the value of erosion or sedimentation per cell in kilogrammes. After summing these negative (erosion) and positive (sedimentation) cell values, per side of the border, it was found that overall the Czech Republic experiences erosion and Austria experiences sedimentation. After adding up the raster cell values per catchment, it turns out that on both sides of the border there are catchments eroding but also catchments with sedimentation. To prove that the difference in former political regime is the cause of the now proven difference in erosion, the values of erosion were this time added up per classification within certain factors that could possibly also be the cause. The number of parcels per square kilometre were also counted per catchment and the average parcel size per catchment was recorded. For each catchment, the summed value of erosion was also known. The comparison between these numbers did not prove that catchments with larger parcels experience more erosion. The only factor that can be said to influence erosion is the relationship between the parcel direction and the direction of the aspect. However, this is not the culprit behind the difference in erosion on either side of the border, because parcels with the right correlation in terms of this direction relationship are equally common on either side of the border. This thesis was able to answer the three sub questions. The parcel characteristics were clearly different. The average size of the 582 analysed Czech is 12 hectares and the average size of the 5.573 Austrian parcels is 1,2 hectares. This while they roughly cover the same surface area. The Czech side is experiencing a rate of erosion of -4.022.259 Kg while the Austrian side experiences 756.607 Kg of sedimentation. In the catchments that experience erosion, the erosion will increase in the future. The catchments that experience sedimentation, will increase in sedimentation. This thesis has not been able to establish with certainty whether the difference between former political rule on either side of the Czech-Austrian border caused the difference in the rate of erosion.