In Hungary the annual average precipitation is around 600 mm, but there are significant differences among our regions. The south-western part of Hungary is the wettest, as well as higher ground areas where, in some small patches, precipitation amount exceeds even the 800 mm.
The area between the River Danube and River gets the least precipitation in many years of average, here the annual rainfall measure, in general, does not pass 500 mm. The annual precipitation amount has been decreasing from south-west towards north-east, though the Northern Medium Mountain has a purposeful distortion effect.
Due to the domestic radiation relations, the fallen precipitation practically evaporates, and its least amount has been taken away by rivers, though rivers take up only the one-tenth of the here fallen precipitation.
The significant rivers of Hungary, the River Danube is 417 kilometres, the River Tisza runs 596 kilometres long in the country.
The total length of the Hungarian river network is 2417 kilometres. Three significant lakes could be found in the territory of the country. The largest is the Lake Balaton which has 513 km2 ,the Lake Tisza with 60 km2 and the Lake Velence which possess 26 km water surface.
Figure 9. Annual rainfall 1971-2000 (source: Edition based on the datas of Hungarian Meteorological Service)
The importance of water supply has been defined by the European Union in its common water management policy, which is culminated in the Water Framework Directive (WFD) what has been accepted in December, 2000. The legislation defines the major conditions for water management in the following points: ( EK principle 2000/60/EK ):
• Water is not an ordinary commercial product, but it is a heritage that has to be protected and handled accordingly.
• Integration of the protection of the water and the sustainable economy to the other, such fields of the communal policy, such as energy-, transport,-agricultural, piscatorial, regional and tourist policy.
• The final object of this directive is to reach the elimination of the priority hazardous substances, and contributes to reaching of the concentration of naturally occurring substances which nearby the threshold values.
• In such a reservoir, on which the use of waters may have transboundary impacts, the requirements of environmental objective defined in this directive, and especially every measuring programmes district has to
Surface and above the surface natural resources
be coordinated on the whole of the river basin district. (This latest is extremely important in the case of Hungary.)
In order to ensure smooth agricultural, industrial and public water supply our country has developed the Reservoir Management Plan what provides a complex analysis about current conditions and necessity of future investments. The role of the water shows large differences for the previously mentioned target groups. It has become more and more urgent for agriculture to enlarge the reservoirs and sewage system and the renewing of the current infrastructure which has begun in the Vásárhelyi Plan - in order to reduce the impact of negative anomalies in the vegetation period –(Figure)
Figure 10. Investments planned to the Upper and Middle Tisza regions in the Vásárhelyi terv ( own construction)
Figure 11. New elements of the reservoir of Cigánd (source: own picture)
Water is an essential installation factor for industry, and its quality tailored to its exploitation which is taken to appropriate level with the help of divergent techniques.
The quantity and quality of consumable water may be highly divergent even within a short period due to the climatic change impact. All municipalities have to be aware of surface and subsurface strategic stock of water
From public water supply aspect, all settlements of our country dispose favourable facilities, however, just this year European Union days of grace have just expired relating arsenium content curtailment, since the involved settlements were not succeed in solving that problem. Threshold value - defined by EU is 10 mg per each litre, even so in several settlements arsenium content has a triple amount to the permissible quantity. Due to political and public frigidity, up to this very day a more ten thousands of people consume the water which has strongly carciogen effect, despite of the fact that pure water is constantly delivered to the indigent settlement by the Army.
It is wholly amazing for me that a well-known toxic water which is consumed since the sixties, was not succeeded in being equipped with complementary filtering equipments from the KEOP (Environment and Energy Operative Programme) source of the period from 2007 to 2013, in other words the installation of the individual water filters for the population was failed. Besides arsenium, excessive fertilizer use also gives its trace in the water stock of the soil and layer water, in the form of increased nitrite –content, which means an increased threat for pregnant mothers and for small children. It can be seen clearly from the enclosed map , that in the majority of the settlements of our county there are some contaminating elements which exceeds the sanitary threshold values, in public drinking water base. Thus, quantitative and qualitative accessibility of the available water stocks on a given place has to constitute a fundamental part of developmental strategies.
Figure 12. Quality problems of drinking water in our country ( on a basis of www.hidrologia.com - own construction))
Arsenium
Nitrate,Nitrite Lakes
Iron, Manganese Hydrography
Surface and above the surface
NATURA 2000 territories - which have been created by the European Union - are the units of such a coherent European ecological network, which serves as buffer zones for the remanence of relict species and for the preservation of original soil types. It is such a green infrastructure, which provides the ecosystem services of the natural habitats of Europe, as well as provides the preservation of their good condition. The found of the NATURE 2000 network is the Birds Directive of the year of 1979, or rather the codified version which have replaced the Bird Directive in 2009, respectively the Habitats Directive of the year of 1992. The whole network covers something like 17 percentage of the mainland territories of Europe, this approximately equals to the territory of Germany.
According to the European nature conversation regulation the Birds and Habitat Directive are:
1. The objective of the Birds Directive which has been accepted in 1979, is to provide defence for every wild bird race and to their most important habitats. This directive forbids certain activities- such as native birds kept in cavity and their sale, or the slaughtering of animals indiscriminately. – besides these, the directive has been launching such legal regulative to other activities ( e. g. hunting) , which provides their sustainability.
This directive obliges the 27 member states, to protect territories which are highlighted important for migratory birds and for the more than 190, especially endangered species, with special attention to the wetland habitats of international importance.
2. Habitat Directive has been accepted by the European Union n 1992. This directive, similarly to the measures involved in the Birds Directive orders about the preservation of Europe‘s wildlife, but it expands to the much wider circle of rare, endangered, endemic species, to more than thousand animal- and plant species. The preservation of habitats appears here for the first time as an individual objective, which means the protection of quasi 230 rare and characteristic habitat types. (European Union.)
These two directives are generous environment protection initiations, which were ever born for the sake of preserving our natural heritage in the whole territory of the European union. Hungary has contracted with its joining to the European Union to integrate the Union law and order to its domestic regulation It has happened this way relating to natural protection regulations, from the very moment of our joining the two European Union directives, both the two Union directives (The Birds Directive and the Habitats Directive ) are valid.
This means that our county was obliged to designate areas for the sake of the protection of natural habitats of communal significance, or animal and plant, thus they have become parts of the NATURA 2000, the ecological network of the European Union. The conception of the network can be concluded even from it denomination: it is a more or less related chain of valuable natural areas, habitats, which preserve the genuine European Wildlife.
Due to this designation nearly 21 percentages of the area of our county has become NATURA 2000 areas.
Almost all of our originally protected areas have been added to the network, but in addition, further, about 1.2 million hectare territory is given Union protection. It is no wonder then, that among these there are agricultural territories, grasslands, lakes, rivers and forest in large percentage, where farming has been taking place for centuries.