Using place names to interpret former floodplain connectivity in the Morava River, Czech Republic

Abstract

Toponyms, or place names have been used to reveal historical land-use patterns based on degree of wetness in the Morava River floodplain. Eleven patch types were plotted on three land cover types representing broad ecological niches with different moisture regimes for four time periods. The river’s simultaneous decrease in sinuosity, which underscores the loss of the landscape’s ecohydrological connectivity, was quanified. The results show that long-term human-dominated land use worked in concert with a naturally occuring seasonal flood regime. The findings strongly indicate that high human density and intensive exploitation can co-exist with a functioning floodplain. Landscape change was interpreted by using a new concept, that of the place-name patch, which can be universally applied to interpret historical land use changes in river basins. Our method is reproducible in river basins with a history of intensive human use.

Appendix

Expanded definition of place names in the Morava River floodplain landscape

Place name patch	Definition of term
“Pond” (rybník)	Is always taken to mean fish pond in today’s use of the word. It is artificially formed by either hollowing out the soil or embanking and then damming a natural hollow. However, discussion with locals indicate that it might also be used to refer to an area where there is standing water during the spring melt or during excessive rains.
“Meadow” (louka)	Means meadow or grassland which is mown for hay (Lutterer et al. 1982). It is the patch type with the most differentiation in the name, as in dry meadow, wet meadow, sheep meadow, horse meadow, etc. “Louka” derives from the word “luh” and is used as an adjective as in the term “lužní les” floodplain forest.
“Wold” (niva)	Today means floodplain, the level tracts of land over which a river spreads in flood, or alluvium, the transported matter left by water flowing over land not permanently submerged. It is directly tied to alluvial as in “nivní nánosy” which are alluvial deposits, “nivní pánev” backswamp and “nivní travinné porosty” taken to be alluvial grassland (Lutterer et al. 1982). The standard dictionary translates it as meadow. The Czech on-line dictionary translates it as “wold” which in turn is translated as “náhorni rovina” which would be the English “downs.” From the patch position in the floodplain, it would seem logical to use the term “wold.”
“Greensward” (trávník)	Has the meaning of sod or turf, a grassed area that is grazed or mown
“Corduroy road” (hať)	Has the sense of tamping or treading down, a road across marshy ground made firm by either treading down or the laying down of planks
“Pasture” (pastvina)	Is a small pasture or grassland for grazing
“Dike” (hráz)	Is constructed of earth and stones. As a barrier its use could be either to keep water out or to impound water as in “přehrazující hráz” a small reservoir.
“Mill” (mlýn)	Without an adjectival antecedent “mlýn” always means flour mill. The word is often used to describe small waterways or channels created specifically to take advantage of water power, e.g. “mlýnský náhon” meaning mill race or “mlýnský potok” meaning mill stream.
“Running water” (tok)	Has the meaning of running water. It can be taken to mean an over-bank flow with current, a sheet of water moving over the land. It should not be confused with the word “potok” which is a small stream or brook within clearly defined banks.
“Morava” (Morava)	Is a hydronym that derives from the Celtic word for river. In Europe it is the oldest surviving named landscape feature. In Czech, the suffix “ava” is an easily identifiable hydronym; in German, the transliterated suffix “au” performs the same function, eg. “Vltava” Czech, “Moldau” German. In the Czech Republic, there are several rivers of this nomenclature, e.g., Vltava, Opava, Morava. Within the Morava watershed itself there are several third to fifth order rivers: Bobrava, Jihlava, Litava, Olšava, Oskava, Rusava, and Svitava. In “Morava,” the root of the word, “mor,” means sea. The German name for the Morava, “March” or marsh, attests to its historical character as a great inland sea or marsh. Lutterer et al. (1982) gives a slightly different origin, citing “mar” from the Germanic for marsh added to the Old Slavonic “ahwa” meaning river to get “marsh river.” The nearest English equivalent may be the now familiar cognomen “River of Grass” for the Everglades.
“Mire” (blato)	“Blato” signifies mud, while in its plural form “blata” it can be taken as a cognomen for an ecosystem: mire, bog, or swamp. The root “blat,” as a prefix, is used to form the common names of plants, such as “blatouch” buttercup (Ranunculus sp.) and “blatouch bahenní” (Machek, 1954) marsh-marigold (Caltha palustris).