Identification and preservation of historic field patterns - Faculty of Environmental Sciences CZU Prague

About the project

Project number: DG18P02OVV060

Project title: Identification and preservation of historic field patterns
Donor: NAKI II (Program: DG)
Project coordinator: ČZU Prague, University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice
Project coordinator: FES ČZU Prague
Project leader: prof. Ing. Petr Sklenička, CSc.
Contact person: doc. Ing. Kristina Janečková, Ph.D. (ČZU), doc. PhDr. Jaromír Beneš, Ph.D. (JČU)
Project schedule: 2018-2022
Total project budget: 23,3 mil. Kč

Annotation:

The disappearance and degradation of historical landscapes of cultural significance is a global problem, and one which is highly pertinent to the Faculty of Environmental Sciences (FES). These landscapes of the Czech Republic are referred to as plužina, and at present their presence hasn’t been systematically recorded leaving them vulnerable to further decline. Plužina hold intrinsic values for their medieval origin and form as unique among cultural landscapes of the world; as well as in landscape stability.

Starting in 2018, this project has been made possible via Czech Ministry of Culture (NAKI II) funding and brings together expertise from a number of research facilities and disciplines. The team which is coordinated by ČZU rector prof. Ing. Petr Sklenička, CSc. and is comprised of researchers from ČZU, and the University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice.

This project aims to provide protection to plužina landscapes, which will be done through understanding them from a range of perspectives to analyse their development, threats and best methods of protection with the aim of ensuring the sustainable development of plužina landscapes. Research within this project will be used to guide civic authorities in identifying, understanding and making steps to protect these landscapes across the Czech Republic. Furthermore, a utility model will be constructed for the effects which plužina have on landscape hydrology. Alongside this, the significance of plužina as both a internationally important cultural landscape, and their place within the story of Czech nation.

CRITICAL CATALOG

Critical catalog katalog-pluziny-e-kniha-3-1-.pdf

Size 37.2 MB

Download file

News

Archiv aktualit

30.4.2020

Excavation of pluzina filed systems in Debrné

29.4.2020

Field work in České Středohoří mountains

29.4.2020

Plužina field systems in Rokštejn

Plužina - basic facts

Plužina can be defined as “long parallel plots connected to the individual farmsteads of the village prevail, with a minimum of shorter, transversal hedgerows”, and each plot is often divided by strips comprised of either woody vegetation, grassland and stones, or a combination of these. These are reminiscent of the bocage landscapes of France with their hedgerows however, plužina standout in their particular patterns showing the connection of village and surrounding agricultural landscape as it would have been in Medieval times.

Landscapes such as plužina are vernacular in the way they continue a lineage of traditions between those who live within an area and how their relation and use of the surroundings is transformed overtime, into what is now referred to as an organically evolved continuing landscape under UNESCO definitions. As a result the places where plužina exist become important for their relationship to culture, and also in their stabilising effect on the landscape, where the landscapes have reduced soil erosion and higher biodiversity.

The importance of these landscapes comes from this unbroken lineage, making them at the same time vulnerable as their persistence depends on a constant low-level intervention of the landscape for which abandonment and degradation of plužina result in the absence. Since the 1950’s Czech landscapes have seen accelerated change, as more industrialised forms of agriculture dominated during the soviet regime moved towards collectivisation, which lead to an intensification of farming and a simplification of the landscape and widespread decline of plužina. In the wake of this only a few well preserved remnants exist, these are still prone to degradation through processes such as marginalisation, abandonment and in some cases intensification.

Controlling and reversing the degradation to plužina will be a main theme of this project, working from a basis that firstly it is vital to know what exists and lay bare supporting evidence for their legal protection. As at present no legal instruments exist to ensure protection of plužina, and in a world of climate breakdown and change, the stabilising effects which plužina bring to landscapes are all the more vital.

Photogallery

Field work in Valštejn

Field work in Rokštejn