DROUGHT II 'Drought as a real threat, we will face a lack of water' workshop took place in Prague
The workshop with this title, which took place in the city hall of Prague 9 on March 31, 2016, was the second one from the series of workshops called "Prevention of catastrophes, protection of inhabitants and environment“ in the last two years, devoted to a rather urgent problem: drought. Similarly as the previous workshops this event was organized by the Czech Association for Environmental Care and the Czech National Committee for Disaster Reduction with a patronage of the minister of agriculture Mr. Jurečka. Almost 100 specialists from the state and public administration and crisis management, non-governmental organizations and specialists from industry and education participated in this topical workshop.
Program of the workshop covered drought and measures for lowering of drought impacts from several angles. Drought and its different kinds, definitions, development of the drought period in 2015 year and also possibilities of the measures against drought impacts, especially in agriculture and care about landscape, presented J. Rožnovský from the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute.
The following lecture, given by P. Punčochář, covered activities of the ministry of agriculture especially with respect to the targets proposed by the inter–resort commission WATER – DROUGHT and approved by the government decree No. 620 from July 29, 2015. The proposed measures also include strengthening of water retention in landscape and in a soil profile of farmed agricultural land. J. Nistler from the ministry of environment explained tasks arose from the government decree No. 620 for the forthcoming years. He also stressed importance of financing of adaptation measures to drought from the Operational program for environment and also from the National program for environment (especially the new program called “Blue for savings”).
T. Hrdinka, the secretary of the new inter–resort commission WATER – DROUGHT from the Water Research Institute TGM, described the process of establishment of this commission. It was created by joining commission WATER, established by the minister of agriculture, and the commission DROUGHT, established by the minister of environment and the Water Research Institute TGM. He also explained 50 main tasks and concrete measures arising from the government decree No. 620.
The participants appreciated interesting contribution by P. Kubala from the Povodí Vltavy, State Enterprise, devoted his lecture to securing enough water in the future and also to situation in water management where the demand for water during drought periods often collides with a need for sufficient flood protection. He stressed the importance of urgent start of the long-term measures for ensuring enough water in a larger scale overlapping one election period.
J. Vopravil from the Research Institute for Soil and Water Conservation dealt with soil degradation and its influence on the intensity of drought. He also warned that almost 50% of agrarian land in our country nowadays has been threatened by water erosion. Therefore, it is urgent to care about soil degradation much more intensively than in the past.
An important role of forests in the process of water retention in the landscape was stressed in the contribution of V. Švihla (formerly) from the Research Institute for Soil and Water Conservation. Two last contributions concentrated on a situation and concrete measures against drought impacts at the local and regional government levels.
The mayor of the village Ratíškovice A. Hubáčková showed possibilities of realization of several short-term and also long-term measures towards lowering drought impacts at the local level. Ratíškovice is a good example how to improve prevention against drought and a lack of water by an active approach of a local administration.
Similarly, Z. Chlád, a counselor of the regional government at Vysočina, introduced activities in the drought prevention by means of efficient measures in forest and water managements and also in an approach of farmers. Moreover, the Vysočina region has established very efficient cooperation in drought prevention with the neighboring regions Southern Moravia and Southern Bohemia as well as with Lower Austria.
The participants in the workshop in discussions during and at the end of the workshop stressed growing importance of preparedness for drought periods in connection with adaptation on climate change in recent years. They have been pleased by more intense measures in the drought agenda by the state authorities (the government decree No. 620 and all activities related to this act both from agriculture and environment government departments) and also by more efficient cooperation between these two government departments.
The participants also concluded the preparedness for drought periods should reached the same level as the preparedness for floods (which has much longer tradition in our country than those one for drought) and the prevention measures for both threats connected with water should be realized simultaneously. Moreover, it is desirable to combine both technological and close to nature measures for lowering drought impacts. Besides strategies and conceptions, an acceleration of practical measures should be preferred and carried out. Some of the measures could start relatively soon while the other ones, especially the long-term, will need good planning and preparation as well as securing resources for their funding.
All possible sources of funding from the special programs of agriculture and environment departments as well as from other sources should be utilized for drought prevention. The presented examples of soil degradation (decrease of soil evaluation during the last 15 years) are alarming. Consequently, it is urgent to re-evaluate mechanism of agriculture subsidizing farmers towards improvement their production and choosing plants more resilient to drought. It is partially connected with the fact a great part of farmers do not farm on their own but on the leasehold land and, in a combination with the use of biomass for energy production, their farm management often leads to soil erosion and decrease of soil infiltration capability.
Finally, it leads to loss of ability of water retention. It is desirable to further improve cooperation and coordination of ministries for agriculture, environment and also industry in the area of programs of subsidies (production of foodstuffs, soil and water protection and the use of biomass for energy production). The presentations from local and regional governments showed that an active approach to improvement of preparedness for drought brings positive results even though sometimes faces to a lower understanding of citizens and funding problems.
Each participant in the workshop obtained a compact disk with presentations from the workshop Drought II and also from the previous workshop Drought I together with other materials dealing with drought prevention problems.
All participants stressed the importance of education of people as well as institutions in drought prevention – it is an urgent and long-term problem and task. The workshop Drought II significantly helped in such kind of education owing to a support by the ministry of agriculture. A nice facility for organization of the workshop in the premises of the city hall of Prague 9 together with well–tailored workshop program contributed to the overall success of the drought workshop.