Řežabinec a Řežabinecké tůně (Řežabinec and Ponds of Řežabinec) is a national nature reserve in

Kestřany Kestřany is a municipality and village in Písek District in the South Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 700 inhabitants. Administrative division Kestřany consists of three municipal parts (in brackets population according to t ...

Písek District Písek District () is a Okres, district in the South Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic. Its capital is the town of Písek. Administrative division Písek District is divided into two Districts of the Czech Republic#Municipalities with extended ...

in the

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, also known as Czechia, and historically known as Bohemia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the south ...

. It is situated among the villages of Lhota u Kestřan,

Ražice Ražice is a municipality and village in Písek District in the South Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 400 inhabitants. Ražice lies approximately south of Písek, north-west of České Budějovice, and south of Prague. Admi ...

and

Putim Putim is a municipality and village in Písek District in the South Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 600 inhabitants. The village centre is well preserved and is protected as a village monument zone. Etymology The name is deri ...

. The area is protected due to the presence of valuable littoral ecosystems. This environment provides habitat suitable for many species of

birds Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class (biology), class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the Oviparity, laying of Eggshell, hard-shelled eggs, a high Metabolism, metabolic rate, a fou ...

, who use this area for breeding, and other animal species. The protected area includes Řežabinecké pond itself, along with adjacent pools caused by the flooding of old medieval mining holes, and a significant archaeological site on neighboring Pikárna hill, where there was extensive human settlement in the

Paleolithic The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic ( years ago) ( ), also called the Old Stone Age (), is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone tools, and which represents almost the entire period of human prehist ...

and

Mesolithic The Mesolithic (Ancient Greek language, Greek: μέσος, ''mesos'' 'middle' + λίθος, ''lithos'' 'stone') or Middle Stone Age is the Old World archaeological period between the Upper Paleolithic and the Neolithic. The term Epipaleolithic i ...

. The

pond A pond is a small, still, land-based body of water formed by pooling inside a depression (geology), depression, either naturally or artificiality, artificially. A pond is smaller than a lake and there are no official criteria distinguishing ...

was constructed in a former river bed of the Otava River, and a

wetland A wetland is a distinct semi-aquatic ecosystem whose groundcovers are flooded or saturated in water, either permanently, for years or decades, or only seasonally. Flooding results in oxygen-poor ( anoxic) processes taking place, especially ...

developed. The construction started in 1530 at the instigation of the Lord of

Zvíkov Castle Zvíkov (; ), often called "the king of Czech castles",Petr David, Vladimír Soukup, Lubomír Čech, Wonders of Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia, pg. 138, Euromedia Group (2004), is a castle in Zvíkovské Podhradí municipality, about north of Pís ...

, Kryštof of Švamberk. Gradually the water area became overgrown with littoral vegetation consisting mainly of reeds, and this valuable vegetation covered approximately 40% of the Řežabinec area. However excessive fish production, mostly in the 1970s and 1980s, resulted in damage to the protected area and extinction of many species. Nowadays reed coverage has declined to approximately 15% of the Řežabinec pond area. As of 2011, the pond is state-owned and managed by Nature Conservation Agency of the Czech Republic, which seeks to restore species diversity and minimize negative human impact.

Climate

The nature reservation is one of the warmest places in the southwest of the Czech Republic. The climate here is classified as Cfb by the Köppen-Geiger system. Number of degree heating days is 3454 and annual horizontal

solar irradiation Solar irradiance is the power per unit area (surface power density) received from the Sun in the form of electromagnetic radiation in the wavelength range of the measuring instrument. Solar irradiance is measured in watts per square metre (W ...

is 3090 Wh/m2/day.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rezabinec a Rezabinecke tune National nature reserves in the Czech Republic Protected areas in Písek District