No abstract

Soil erosion, including ephemeral gully erosion, is a serious degradation process in the Czech Republic. It currently threatens more than half of the agricultural acreage through negative changes in the whole complex of soil properties. The unfavourable consequences of surface runoff are seen in the erosion processes degrading agricultural soils. The South Moravia Region was selected as the case study area – mainly for its natural conditions and high soil degradation risk . A set of data, collected from 2012 to 2017 in a maize-growing area, especially on deep loess soils in the South Moravia Region, was used to analyse the morphological characteristics of the ephemeral gullies (EGs). The relationship was confirmed between the ephemeral gully (EG) length and the size of its contributing drainage area in accordance with studies conducted in other countries. It is also important that the closest relationship was confirmed between the length of the gully and its calculated volume. Dependence was sought on the data of 51 cases of the detailed, measured and evaluated EGs. These results will become the basis for finding a predictive relationship and the quantification of EG erosion. Locating EGs and predicting their length is crucial for estimating the sediment load and planning conservation strategies. The aim of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of this issue, i.e., define and verify the basic crucial causal factors and propose guidelines for locating the potential EG occurrence and predicting the sediment load. A research effort to better understand the EG mechanism and causal factors over a wide range of watershed conditions is fundamental to the establishment of basic rules for the adoption of optimal conservation strategies.

The subject of this article is a comparison of results of soil texture analysis of loamy and sandy‑loam soils for soil erodibilty calculation using the Casagrande areometric method and results obtained by the laser diffraction method. A comparison was made of 27 samples taken from the Větřkovice locality, and 18 samples taken from the Hustopeče locality. On the basis of laboratory analysis of the soil samples, curves of grain composition were plotted, and the soils were divided into grain‑size groups according to the ratio of individual fractions. For comparison of the results, the soils’ regression dependence, with linear, exponential, quadratic and polynomic trends were derived. Applying these different methods for determining soil texture may affect the determination of K factor values and the value of soil loss. The results show that the laser diffraction method provides higher values of % silt and % silty sand at both model sites. Using the K values determining from Casagrande method measuring can led to the underestimation of soil erodibility. This underestimation can be explained by a change in particle size distribution between the described methods used.

The present study aims to investigate the relationship between severity of late effects and subjective quality of life of childhood cancer survivors in different age brackets. The sample consisted of 147 cancer survivors (70 boys and 77 girls) aged 8 to 18 who were in remission 2 to 5 years. The analyses were carried out separately for younger (8-12 years) and older (13-19 years) age groups. Cancer survivors were asked to complete Minnesota-Minneapolis Quality of Life Instrument (MMQL) as well as other methods of measuring involvement in everyday life activities and parent-child interactions Social And Health Assessment (SAHA) were used. Severity of late effects was assessed on a 4-point scale in accordance with Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events v3.0. While severity of late effects correlated positively only with parental warmth in younger age bracket, there were many relationships between severity of late effects and quality of life in older age bracket. The difference between the two age brackets is explained by the fact that adolescents are able to assess the impact of the disease.