Acta Botanica Croatica, Vol. 59 No. 2, 2000.
Original scientific paper
The vegetation of the Meggyes Marsh in the starting phase of rehabilitation
Szilvia Göri
; Hortobágy National Park Directorate, Debrecen, Hungary
Gyula Lakatos
; KLTE Department of Applied Ecology, Debrecen, Hungary
Csaba Aradi
; Hortobágy National Park Directorate, Debrecen, Hungary
Magdolna K. Kiss
; KLTE Department of Applied Ecology, Debrecen, Hungary
Klára Bitskey
; KLTE Department of Applied Ecology, Debrecen, Hungary
Abstract
In the middle of the last century enormous water regulation works were implemented in the flood plain of the River Tisza in order to open large areas for intensive agricultural production. In the recent past (1970s) agricultural amelioration has been the most significant of human-induced factors threatening the wetlands. Fortunately, the dominant wetland types have survived these unfavourable conditions. The remains of them are still of inestimable value for nature conservation, because alkaline marshes and shallow ponds have almost completely disappeared from other parts of Europe.
Consequently, it is the basic duty of nature conservation to preserve or restore the residual natural or semi-natural wetlands, as well as to revive the one-time connections among units that have become separated from each other. Accordingly, Hortobagy National Park aims at restoring and maintaining the original water regime of the water-related habitats in order to arrive at the most natural conditions possible.
Hydrobiological research on a rehabilitated marsh was started in 1996, the year of the first flooding, while in 1997 the investigations were completed with a vegetation survey. In the present paper, information is provided on the hydrobiological conditions observed in the area, and the principal botanical transformations of the flooded marsh are summarized. In the starting phase of the rehabilitation significant changes took place as the degraded homogenous vegetation became altered by - when considering species composition and structure - a more diverse type of vegetation. Both botanical and hydrobiological data indicated an alkaline marsh character.
Keywords
wetland; nature conservation; rehabilitation; Hortobagy National Park; Hungary
Hrčak ID:
160675
URI
Publication date:
31.12.2000.
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