As a consequence of the industrial revolution that took place in the second half of the 19th century, groundwater started to be intensively exploited for the purpose of water supplies and there was extensive development of the spa industry including mineral springs.
A number of conflicts emerged involving resources of groundwater in connection with the development of mining and civil engineering. Due to such problems some of the engineers and geologists of the time became specialized in the issue of the groundwater.
Mr. Ota Hynie (1899 -1968) is considered to be the founder of Czech hydrogeology. In the second and third decade of the 20th century further development of the water industry required the foundation of an independent scientific discipline -hydrogeology. It addresses topical problems related to the groundwater. Mr. Ota Hynie was the first Czech professor of hydrogeology at Charles University. In 1952, he founded the first university department that systematically educated new experts in the field of hydrogeology.
The 50's to 70's were a period of fur- ther development of the classical hydro- geology. The most significant tasks achieved at that time were a hydrogeological survey of the whole country, and a hydrogeological map in the scale of 1 :200 000 was produced. Also, the impact of the mining of coal and other minerals upon significant groundwater aquifers and areas was assessed.
Within this period of time the following important drinking water resources were developed -Karany, Zernoseky, Repinsky valley, Libechovka, Policka basin, Trebonska basin, etc. Also at that time there was quite an extensive development of mineral and thermal springs for spa purposes, and solutions for their protection -in particular with regard to coal mining -were found (Karlovy Vary, Frantiskovy Lazne, Darkov, Teplice, etc).
In the 80's emphasis was laid on establishing a balance in the groundwater (the whole territory of the country was broken down into hydrogeological districts as independent balance units and respective resources of groundwater were calculated, including the degree of their exploration).
Step by step, the amount of hydrogeological work related to the protection of environment increased (surveys of landfills, regional landfills studies, studies of pollution of groundwater due to industrial and agricultural activities). What is typical for the last decade of the 20th century is a prevailing orientation of hydrogeology towards environmental issues - groundwater protection zones, pollution, and remediation of groundwater and rock environment. Work on the hydrogeological map of the country went on, and a result of such efforts was the issue of environmental, geological, hydrogeological and water management maps of the whole territory of the country in the scale of 1:50 000.
In the 1991 Czech hydrogeologists spontaneously founded a professional associations -the Czech Association of Hydrogeologists (CAH). In the 1999 they founded with other geological associations the Union of Geological Associations (UGA) as a unified geological organization in the Czech Republic, which in the beginning of 2002 became a member of the European Federation of Geologists (EFG)
Information & Contact: RNDr. Jiří Čížek
Ochrana podzemních vod, s.r.o.
Belohorská 31
169 00 Prague 6
tel: 00420/220 515 042
fax: 00420/233 352 664 e-mail: cizek.j@opv.cz
