Floristic Diversity of Lakes Subjected to Long Term Changes in the Water Network of the West Polesie (Eastern Poland)

The Wieprz-Krzna Canal, built in 1961, is one of the longest in Poland (142 km). Although the drainage construction was intended to revitalize the region of wetlands and peat-bogs of the West Polesie, it caused large hydrological changes. Research on catchments of three natural lakes and three retention reservoirs involved cartographic analysis using photointerpretation, as well as the Braun-Blanquet method. In the studied area, between 1939 and 2016 the length of rivers and ditches increased more than three times. Macrophytes covered about 20-27% of the natural lakes water surface, whereas in retention reservoirs the coverage was 12-15.5%. Also a greater diversity of macrophytes occurred in natural lakes. In retention reservoirs it was restricted to only emerged macrophytes.