Tomasz Okruszko – författare

Wetlands are complex and dynamic ecological systems incorporating two important, inter-linked components: hydrology and vegetation. Modelling wetland components and processes reveals the nature of wetland systems and helps to predict the effects of environmental change. The main goal of much current research is the construction of a vigorous and spatially-explicit model which describes the dynamics of wetland vegetation in relation to environmental variables, including hydrological regimes, sediment type and nutrient availability. Knowledge about ecological functions, environmental services and societal values associated with wetlands has increased rapidly. How to turn this knowledge into practical benefits for sustainable and integrated wetland management is a key question. Individual chapters address the ethics and sociology of wetlands, and the ecology, ecohydrology and conservation practice of a variety of landscapes and countries. It will be useful to students, teachers and scientists involved in wetland research and informative for the staff of governmental bodies and other organizations engaged in wetland management.

Since climate and land use strongly affect the runoff pattern and intensity of solute export, it is likely that some observations and conclusions formulated on the basis of investigations carried out in forested catchment may not be fully adequate to describe controls on solute export from agricultural watersheds. The primary objective of the present research is to better understand the flow paths that affect the fluxes of dissolved compounds from a small agricultural catchment during snowmelt. This book focuses on spring snowmelt, because this is the dominant hydrological event in many moderate and high latitude catchments and, thus, is regarded as a prominent factor influencing the quality of surface waters