Costs and benefits of landscape-based water retention measures as nature-based solutions to mitigating climate impacts in eastern Germany, Czech Republic, and Slovakia

In eastern Germany, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia, historic policies have led to large, monocropped agricultural landscapes, resulting in the degradation of traditional landscapes. Over the last 20 years, the expansion of urban and industrial areas has further contributed to this degradation. In response, there is a growing interest in nature-based solutions, including water-retention measures, to reverse landscape degradation, rejuvenate ecosystem services, and mitigate the impacts of large-scale commercial agriculture and climate change.
This study assesses the costs and benefits of water-retention measures in eastern Germany, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia. The results indicate that these measures offer increased water availability across all assessed land use classes, help boost crop productivity, and contribute to landscape cooling. Croplands are identified as providing the best value for money, offering the greatest potential in terms of water volume (mean = 88 million m³), cooling effects (mean = −1.6°C), and productivity gains (mean = €66 million yr−1), while also being the cheapest to implement per unit area.
However, differing policies in the three states will likely lead to non-uniform selection or implementation of these measures. Future work should focus on local-level studies to provide more practical insights beyond the regional-level analysis conducted here.
This study contributes to the growing body of literature assessing the costs and benefits of water-retention measures, including their potential for landscape cooling, reducing temperature gradients, and restoring ecosystems. As the world continues to urbanize and more land is converted to homogeneous cropland, such measures may prove critical in mitigating climate change, landscape drying, flood runoff, and soil and nutrient loss.