REC: The Bulletin 7/2: Why the floods?

A F T E R  T H E  F L O O D

C Z E C H  R E P U B L I C

Why the floods?

by Andreas Beckmann

There is no argument that the July rains were exceptional in the Czech Republic - in some places, as much water fell in a few days as usually falls over an entire year, sending as much as two and a half billion cubic meters of water down the Odra and Morava watersheds. The sudden deluge of water in any case would have overwhelmed anti-flood defenses. Yet few doubt that humans were at least partly to blame for the great destruction wreaked by the "flood of the century" which left behind an estimated 60 billion crowns (USD 1.8 billion) worth of damage and forty-six people dead. The floods were intensified by shabby environmental planning, deforestation, indiscriminate urban planning, and senseless river management.

"It's natural when it rains too much, that there will be floods," said Petr Blahnik, deputy head of the Environmental Protection Agency. "But if the ecology wasn't so devastated, there wouldn't be as much damage as we have."

Deforestation in the Krkonose, Orlicke, Jesenik, and Beskydy mountains, where acid rain has affected 80 percent or more of the trees, limited the absorptive capacity of the soil, said Karel Dolejsi of the Czech NGO DUHA. The water that soaked the area rushed directly into the rivers, turning them into raging torrents that ripped away houses and bridges. Logging practices also contributed as treeless strips and logging roads provided channels for rainwater to flow down the mountainsides.

Bohumil Kucera, spokesman for the Environmental Ministry's Agency for Nature and Landscape Conservation, stated that between 1960 and 1990, 4,000 kilometers of waterside vegetation were destroyed. And another 240,000 hectares of field hedges - which act as natural flood barriers - were plowed under.

Intensive agriculture introduced by the Communist regime and continued after 1989 also contributed, as extensive amelioration - the artificial draining and/or irrigation of fields - assured that rainwater, instead of being held by the land, shot down into the already swollen rivers. Prime Minister Klaus admitted on "Sedm dni," a televised debate show, that in light of the flooding, amelioration "is one of the country's worst nightmares."

In addition, heavy machinery used on fields, one-crop monocultures, and the liberal use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers have steadily reduced not only the fertility but also the absorptive capacity of the soil. "For years we've taken out of the land more than we've put back," said Karel Jech of Greenpeace.

URBAN RUINS AFTER THE FLOOD in Troubky and Prerov, Czech Republic

Much of the cost of the flooding, many admit, can be chalked up directly to human foolhardiness. Many of those who suffered losses had built their homes and factories on floodplains - in some cases without, but in many cases with, official approval. Jiri Low, an architect and urban planner, noted in an interview for "Respekt" weekly that objects on floodplains were not only tempting fate, but also contributed to the destruction by significantly affecting the flow of water, directing it in ways unforeseen by the flood control planners.

In fact, the artificial waterway control systems - the dikes, dams, cemented riverbeds and banks - though perhaps effective in dealing with a limited quantity of water, could not cope with the sudden deluge and only contributed to the problem by channeling the huge quantities of water quickly together. Nonetheless, Water Authority officials quickly went on television to refer to the lack of investment in flood control in the past and called for greater outlays in the future.

Water management, however, has been hampered by division among three ministries - environment, agriculture, and industry. Over the past year, ministries have spent more time on political turf battles than on coordinating their water systems, one outcome being that the Water Authorities were recently moved from the environmental to the agricultural ministry. Environment Minister Jiri Skalicky in a recent interview with "Ekonom" criticized the conflict of interests inherent in the present structure of the Water Authorities, which are private companies wholly owned by the state. The fact that the companies gain the bulk of their revenues from sales of water meant that most reservoirs were full and unavailable as catch-basins for the floodwater.

Warning signs indicating the role humans have played in intensifying flooding have been around for years, notes Mirek Kundrata, director of the Czech Environmental Partnership Foundation. Severe local flooding has been an almost regular occurrence in the area for more than a decade, such that submersion of the areas of Bruntal and Opava in the spring of 1996 caused the then Minister of the Environment Frantisek Benda to declare that "the countryside is in a catastrophic state."

Global warming was immediately labeled by many as the cause of the flooding, but as Jiri Low points out, the flooding was not unusual but rather a regular occurrence that has affected the area for millennia. Global warming, nevertheless, could have an affect on the frequency of flooding. "These unstable weather conditions are occurring more frequently, as there is no stability in the upper atmosphere," says Blahnik of the Environmental Protection Agency. "Therefore, droughts and floods have a more extreme effect."

Even without this, the law of statistics holds that having suffered a massive flood does not put the region off the hook for another hundred years - tomorrow could bring another "flood of the century," or even of the millennium. With that in mind, there is all the more reason to draw on the many lessons of this flood to be better prepared for the next one.

- Andreas Beckmann,
public relations coordinator for the
Environmental Partnership for Central Europe in Prague

REC * PUBLICATIONS * THE BULLETIN * SUMMER 1997