Marian Kazda

Marian Kazda was appointed as a professor of plant ecology at Ulm University in 1995. From that time until his retirement last year, he broadened his scientific expertise to other fields as well. Furthermore, his major motivation was to impart his knowledge to younger generations. His strength lies in his interdisciplinary approach, bridging soil science, plant ecology, and environmental pollution with human impact.

Marian Kazda was born in 1957 in southern Bohemia, in the former Czechoslovakia. He studied forestry at Mendel University in Brno, Czech Republic. However, before graduating, he managed to escape from the communist regime in 1980 and continued his studies at University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences in Vienna. He graduated in 1983 and received his PhD in 1985. Further milestones in his career included the Institute of Geobotany at Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf, the Institute of Silviculture at University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences in Vienna, and finally, a professorship at Ulm University. There, he served as Head of the Institute of Systematic Botany and Ecology (2007–2022) and Director of the Botanical Garden of Ulm University (2008–2023).

During his scientific career, Marian Kazda covered several research fields. In Austria, his initial interests focused on acid rain, soil acidification, and heavy metal accumulation in forests. Later, in North Rhine-Westphalia, he observed the effects of lowering the groundwater table on wetlands due to open-cast lignite mining. He combined these effects of drainage with wetland restoration, macrophyte ecology, and substrate oxygenation by plants.

Back in Vienna, he mainly focused on the conversion of secondary Norway spruce stands, anticipating the challenges of climate change. Throughout his career, Marian Kazda aimed to transfer his scientific expertise to practical applications, as described, for instance, in an article entitled “Sind Kalamitäten Anlass, die Fichtenwirtschaft zu überdenken?”(Are calamities a reason to rethink spruce-based forestry?), published as early as 1994 in the Austrian Forestry Journal. This line of thought led to the EU-Project SUSTMAN,“Introduction of broadleaf species for sustainable forest management,”which he coordinated between 2002 and 2005, involving 10 partners from five countries.

The professorship at Ulm University allowed him to broaden his interests in tropical ecology. He participated three times in French-led expeditions in different tropical rainforests in Africa. There, in Latin America, and in other countries, he studied liana ecology and nutrition in relation to host trees. In Europe, he led several projects related to root dynamics, also using multi-sensor techniques and GIS applications to study clustered root distribution.

Since the early nineties, Marian Kazda has been engaged in wetland ecology, mainly focusing on drainage and restoration. Degraded wetlands in Southern Germany provided wide opportunities for the application of novel methods using optical sensors for oxygen monitoring. These activities led him, 20 years ago, to the Kuibyshev reservoir on the Wolga river, where his team, together with colleagues from Kazan State University, studied the effects of cattail (Typha angustifolia) on this ecosystem.

Back in Ulm, he was part of a large project consortium monitoring greenhouse gas emissions after wetland restoration.

Professor Kazda also contributed to the development of Ulm University. He was significantly involved in the acquisition of two professorships granted by the Carl-Zeiss-Foundation (Tropical Botany) and by the City Council of Ulm (Sustainable Development), respectively. The latter donation was closely related to his role as CEO of the regional NGO for sustainable economic development, which he chaired between 2005 and 2011.

The need for regenerative energy motivated Marian Kazda to expand his interests into biogas production, where he could combine his ecological knowledge with a technical background. In this area, he ran several research projects on the utilisation of organic residues, on-demand biogas production, and process stability. Finally, he applied the Source-Sink Concept to anaerobic methane production and combined it with novel optical aquatic CO2 sensors. This invention was acknowledged by a European patent in 2023, and he is a co-founder of the start-up OptProC.

While in the early years of his career he received awards for the novelty of his scientific work, later he was awarded twice by Ulm University for excellent teaching. These awards were justified by his interdisciplinary teaching approaches, which included students from different countries. Since 2011, he has been the initiator of educational consortium with successful ERASMUS projects and associated summer schools in the Czech Republic, Estonia, Germany, France, and Ukraine. In 2019, he initiated the inclusion of Ukrainian National Forestry University in Lviv into the consortium. Now, the ongoing Erasmus+ project EcoSocMan is further promoting ecological knowledge and understanding among young people from five countries.

Against the background of his personal history, Professor Kazda has made long-lasting efforts to bring together young people from Eastern and Western Europe. Experiencing nature in different countries, demonstrating local development, sustainability, restoration, and nature protection have promoted such understanding over the last 12 years of the Summer Schools, with active and significant involvement from Estonian University of Life Sciences.

Marian Kazda´s long-term and consistent contribution to promoting cooperation between Estonian scientists and students with other European countries, as well as his role in educating the next generation of students and young scientists, deserves recognition as an Honorary Doctor of Estonian University of Life Sciences.