Fishponds as an element of surface waters network – overview, history, function
Historically, fishponds are a part of our landscape and Christmas carp is also a part of our culture. This paper describes the history of fishpond management and the different functions of fishponds – the development of fish production as food, the influence on quality of surface waters, the influence on climate and on hydrological regime of the landscape, and the issue of fishpond sediments – their removal and further use. As there is no general pond register in the Czech Republic, so (as part of the DivLand project) we created the Map of water bodies and fishponds in Czech Republic, based on the ZABAGED (primary base of geographical data
in the Czech Republic). For water bodies with an area over 1.0 ha, a public database (xls) was created; bodies over 5.0 ha were classified into groups (fishponds, reservoirs, flooded areas, lakes). The database also contains accessible data on the quality of fishpond sediments. Fishpond sediments are a favourable material for improving the quality of agricultural soils; problems with their use are mostly technical and economical.
