Do Water Management and Climate-Adapted Management of Wetlands Interfere in Practice? Lessons from the Biebrza Valley, Poland - Wetlands and Water Framework Directive: Protection, Management and Climate Change - page 52

drivers-pressures-state-impact-response (DPSIR) analysis referring to the de ned

pressures driven by the changing climate, where the main impact concerned is the
threat to the good status of the Biebrza catchment

s rivers and wetlands which are
substantial elements of biodiversity conservation in the Central Europe. Referring
to the feedback relations de

'

ned, we interpret the undertaken and planned actions

that re ect WFD implementation and discuss whether they cover the set of required

actions originating from the deteriorating status of aquatic and water-dependent
ecosystems. We compare the allocation of funds in the set of the WFD-related
actions in order to assess which types of actions have priorities and which of them
are likely to remain challenges for good status of rivers and related ecosystems.
Finally we provide concise lessons learnt from the analysed process of WFD
implementation in the catchment scale, considering climate change impacts, pro-
tection of species and habitats, and de

fl

icts occurring at the interface of
water management, agriculture and environmental conservation.

ned con fl

4.2 Physiographic Outline of the Study Area

The catchment of the Biebrza river (Fig. 4.1 ), covering 7,120 km 2 , which is nearly
2.5 % of the area of Poland, consists of variable landscapes. Upper, northernmost
parts of the catchment belong to the Baltic Lakelands of a fresh glacial relief,
formed approximately 10,000 years BC whilst the eastern ridges of the catchment
are located within the landscapes formed by the older glaciations (ca. 120,000 years
BC, —

Biebrza Valley, that due to unique hydrogeological and ecological conditions
consists of well-preserved wetlands of unique ecological status in the scale of the
continent (Wassen et al. 2006 ). Elevations in the analysed area vary from some
310 m a.s.l. to some 90 m a.s.l., making the area of research a lowland geoeco-
system. Predominantly mineral, tilly and sandy soils cover the majority of the area
of catchment, but the Biebrza Valley is one of the broadest coherent extents of
peatlands in Europe. Average annual air temperature reaches some 5.7

Ż urek 1984 ). The core of the catchment is the vast lowland depression

° C with the

extremes recorded in July (some 33 C), which allows

to classify the climate of the Biebrza Valley as temperate, with strong continental
in

° C) and February (some 25 °

−

uences (Jaszczuk 2014 ). Average annual sum of precipitation in the catchment
of Biebrza calculated on the basis of rainfall records from 1951 to 2010 reach some
556 mm, with the maximums noted in summer (May

fl

September; 315 mm) (Jas-
zczuk 2014 ). Average potential evapotranspiration in the catchment of Biebrza
calculated with the Thornthwaite

-

s algorithm (Wojciechowski 1968 ) for the data
from 1961 to 2010 exceeds 560 mm (Jaszczuk 2014 ), which allows to state that
water resources of the catchment of Biebrza valley are nearly equally balanced and
thus require monitoring and actions in order to assure appropriate amounts of water
to the

'

final users: society, economy, agriculture and — primarily — the environment.

ow from the catchment of Biebrza reaches some 33 m 3 /s, varying up
to some 600 m 3 /s during the most important

Average out fl

fl flood events (Grygoruk et al. 2013b ).