About 96 % of Hungarian surface water resources originate from the upstream neighbouring countries.
Groundwater recharge areas also extend beyond the borders of the country, expanding to the ridges of the Carpathian Mountains.
About 80 % of the country's surface water resources come from the Danube and Drava rivers, while the Tisza river provides 20 % of the resources, although it covers 50 % of the country's territory.
Hungary can hardly control the quality of the water arriving in the country from abroad. Unfortunately, all transboundary waters are polluted to a certain extent, with the exception of those from Austria.
Organization
The Ministry of Transport, Communication and Water Management is in charge of water quantity and quality protection, water utilization control, flood and land drainage control, river and lake development, prevention of damages caused by water.
Three administrative bodies, headed by a Deputy State Secretary, are responsible for the administration of water affairs within this Ministry.
The National Water Authority (OVF) is a nation-wide organization of the Ministry of Transport, Communication and Water Management. In addition to its own duties, OVF provides administrative and professional guidance and supervises the Regional Water Authorites.
There are 12 Regional Water Authorities, one for each catchment area. They are the real "basin" organizations. Their main administrative task is the management of water resources in accordance with the Water Law and their main regulatory task is water right licensing.
They also have major technical duties such as water distribution, operation and maintenance of watercourses, flood control and protection of infrastructures and water reservoirs of national importance, and river navigation.
A national organization, the Flood Defence and Land Drainage Control Organization (ABKSZ), is also under the supervision of the National Water Authority.
Water quality control of surface and ground waters, including related regulatory and surpervisory tasks, is within the competence of the Ministry for the Environment and Regional Policy, which has established 12 Environmental Inspectorates, whose borders are also based on catchment areas.
The Regional Water Authorities and the Environmental Inspectorates cooperate in making water resources available and in studying the issue of withdrawal licenses.
Miklos Varga
National Water Authority (OVF)
Fax : (36-1) 212 0775
The use of emergency flood retention reservoirs
23% of the 93,000 km2 of the Hungarian territory are endangered by floods. This area includes a quarter of the population and one third of cultivable land. Flood threat is the greatest after the Netherlands in Europe.
Owing to the climatic and geographic conditions of the Carpathian basin and surrounding mountains, floods can occur all year round. Floods, caused by ice melt, are also very dangerous and must be reckoned with. These rivers have a torrent regime upstream and in the event of a quick snow melt or heavy rainfalls their water level can rise quickly by several metres, sometimes within a few hours. The Koros rivers are particularly dangerous because their level can rise by 8-10 metres within 28-36 hours.
As topographic conditions prevent flood storage in mountainous regions, earth dikes have been built on 4,000 km along the rivers. Floods are thus held and the water level can be 3 to 8 metres higher than the surrounding area, that is to say that the population is exposed to a constant danger.
The dikes are mainly exploited by State water services but only 58% of them meet safety standards. Therefore, it has been necessary to retain the peak flood of torrents. Thus, the system of emergency flood retention reservoirs was developed.
The reservoir is a flat area, limited by circular dikes, that can only be used in an extreme situation to avoid disaster. Otherwise, it is used for agricultural and sylvicultural purposes.
In Hungary, there are ten sites for retention reservoirs representing a total area of 218 km2 and a total volume of 363 million of m3. They had to be used eight times between 1966 and 1995. This method has proven to be successful and efficient.
Dr Miklós Varga
Dr Lajos Szlávik
National Water Authority
Fax : (36-1) 212 0775
Visit of a Mexican parliamentary delegation
Following INBO's General Assembly, a Mexican parliamentary delegation, headed by Mr. Montes, Chairman of the Water Commission, and composed of Messrs Almada, Cordoba and Castillo and Mrs Casco, studied the Hungarian experiences in water management from August 13 to 15, 1996.
On August 13, the delegation was received by the Hungarian Parliamentary Committee for Environmental Protection.
The programme of visits was organized by the National Water Authority: the Parliament members visited Si—fok city where the water development of Balaton Lake was presented, then Keszthely town, at the centre of the Small Balaton technical services in Western Transdanubia. They were impressed by the large surface areas devoted to the protection of Balaton Lake water quality.
The visit of the Metropolitan Water Supply Company of Budapest ended the programme.
Kálmán Papp
National Water Authority
Fax : (36-1) 212 0775
"POVODIE DUNAJA", the Danube River Basin company was established in 1966. A State-owned company since 1990, it deals with the management and maintenance of watercourses and operation of hydraulic works. It administrates a territory of 5,896 km2, representing 12% of Slovakia.
The company deals with the management of water works, protection against floods, supply of surface water and control of its quality, project investment, design and implementation.
The project for rehabilitating the Morava between Tvrdonice and Dev'n (STP Morava) is an example of the relation between water management and the environment. The Danube River Basin Company has been working on this project since 1994 in cooperation with the Research Institute of Water Management (Vyskumny śstav vodnŽho hospod‡rstva) in Bratislava and the Institute of Zoology and Eco-zoology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences.
A tributary of the Danube, the Morava has a relatively low flowrate and when it began to be used intensely in Central Europe, the river basin became a forbidden frontier zone with Austria and the Czech Republic, with strictly controlled activities. The river was shortened by building up dams and, today, the flood-prone areas between the dams only represent 20% of the initial threatened area. In 1993, the Slovak basin was entered on the list of the world's most important marshlands (Ramsar convention).
The objectives of STP Morava, the completion of which is scheduled for 1998, are:
to compare the current state of the environment and water-development regulations with those existing at the beginning of the twentieth century and to find out the main trends in the development of the river system,
to determine the optimum values of biotic indicators to be secured when implementing essential water-management activities,
to find model solutions and prognoses for developing the area that are compatible with environmental protection and rehabilitation,
to establish environmental management, rehabilitation and revitalization measures compatible with flow regulation.
The results of the research will be the basis for an alternative development of the Morava and its river basin. The limits of the actions planned in this territory will be stated in the final report, that is why this project will become a basic document for regulating activities and modifications of any kind within the territorial unit considered.
The STP Morava is linked to the project for "biodiversity protection" of the World Bank.
Peter Rusina
The Danube River Basin
Bratislava
Fax : (42-7) 722 547/720 077
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