Engineers have been accused on several occasions that they want to „straighten out” the meandering rivers because they are obsessed with some principle having an end in itself. But regulation does not want to change the watercourse, instead it helps its natural development in such a manner that it can efficiently take part in carrying away the floods. The regulations in the reaches of the Danube within the Carpathian basin, starting from the middle of the 19th century, had as an aim both the protection against floods and the stabilization of the river bed.
Floods on Danube
Pest, the icy flood of March 1838. Mining the town of Pest, had to been remembered, and it was caused by large quantities of ice, piled up causing jam’s at several cross-sections because of the numerous shallows and elbows of the river.
This caused severe catastrophes also in the whole Hungarian section of the Danube. The safety of the capital was created by the river regulation implemented at a later date.
The autumn flood of the year 1899 caused bursting of the dikes in both the Szigetköz and the Csallóköz areas.
In July 1954 once again a flood catastrophe with bursting of dikes affected the Szigetköz, what is more, also the settlement Gy?r-Révfalu.
In March 1956 the piling up of ice caused floods between the town Dunaföldvár and our southern state border. In June 1965 the flood ruined the dikes of the Csallóköz area.
Floods on Tisza
On the Tisza River, the costs for the regulation work, conceived by Pál Vásárhelyi and implemented by the work of several generations, were covered in two-third part by private interests, and in onethird part by the state.
Those interested „voted confidence” to the construction with their personal work and their investments, carried out by their own force and in the hope of economic advantages bringing their return at a later date.
As a consequence of the flood control work, agricultural production became possible or safer on vast areas, and several hun-dreds of thousands of people found a home and a living. We can justly call this period the time of the „second Hungarian conquest of Hungary”.
The regulation and flood control work of the Tisza river, started in 1846. It basically has completed at the beginning of this century. It had a double goal on the one hand to protect the Hungarian Great Plain from floods by constructing a unified dike system, and on the other hand to create feasible flow and navigation conditions by cutting off the degenerated and overdeveloped river bends.
This has not only resulted the shortening of the river length, but also the increase of the gradient of the water surface (slope) and the stabilization of the river bed.
Source: Water Damage Control
Ministry for Transport and Water Management
National Water Authority
Water Resources Center (VITUKI Plc.)
Information & Contact:
Bakonyi Péter Dr.
Director General VITUKI
Kvassay Jeno út 1.
H-1095 Budapest
Phone: +36 1 215 6140, +36 1 215 8160
Fax: +36 1 216 1514
