Prague, May 9 (CTK) – Most of the territory of the Czech Republic is threatened with drought to a low or medium degree, daily Mlada fronta Dnes (MfD) writes yesterday and adds that tiny adjustments of the landscape have a greater effect for retaining water than the construction of dams.
The paper writes that the reserves of surface as well as ground waters are markedly below the average at the beginning of May compared to the previous years and long-term weather forecasts speak about a beautiful, but dry summer.
This prompts experts to revive old proposals for retaining more water in nature than at present and new dams or reservoirs could be built in the Krkonose (Giant) Mountains in east Bohemia, and in the Sumava Mountains, west Bohemia, MfD writes.
However, this arouses a clash between environmentalists and water managers. “Tiny, but blanket adjustments are of a much greater importance for the retention of water than the construction of dams. These adjustments may include the renovation of rivers’ flood plains, a lowering of the flowing off of water from the landscape and others,” MfD quotes Jaromir Blaha, activist of the Friends of the Earth NGO, as saying.
The management of the largest Czech national park, Sumava, together with environmental movements is seeking volunteers to go to peatland and remove drainage ditches, renew the meanders of small streams and valley dams of wood, and again turn peatland into areas saturated with water, MfD writes.
Jan Dvorak, spokesman for the Sumava National Park, told MfD that hundreds of hectares of land have been revitalised this way with the aim of retaining water in nature.
This year’s winter has not decreased the precipitation deficit in the landscape though meteorologists say it was an average one.
“There is now more water in soil, but the threat of soil drought in the layer up to 40 centimetres deep is approximately the same as one year ago,” MfD quotes from a report by the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute.
The report says precipitation in May and June will be decisive for the future development.
Elsewhere, MfD writes about a dispute between biologists and environmentalists on the one side and farmers on the other over who is responsible for the lack of water in the coutnryside in addition to warming up and lower precipitation.
The former blame the decreasing ability of the landscape to retain water on the latter who ploughed up balks and created huge fields, MfD writes.
The farmers say water is lacking in the landscape because of the villages and towns being built in former fields, MfD writes.
“Subsidies for farmers should be connected with their duty to renew balks, polders, lakes and ponds,” MfD quotes Jakub Hruska, from the Czech Geological Society, as saying.
The farmers, for their part, say that without subsidies, they are unable to cultivate the soil so that it may retain more water, MfD writes.
Environment Minister Richard Brabec wants people learn to to retain rain water and use it more economically. The water could be kept in plastic barrels for the purchase of which people could get subsidies within the Blue Savings programme, MfD writes.
