Floodplain rehabilitation projects in Hungary: Case studies from the Danube, Tisza, Körös and Drava rivers

Floodplains along regulated rivers often suffer from serious environmental degradation. River and floodplain rehabilitation measures along the major rivers of Hungary are motivated by two objectives: to inrease the floodwater retention capacity of floodplains (also beyond the dykes) and to improve the ecological conditions of floodplain habitats (with special regard to oxbow lakes). In this paper reports and documents mostly written in Hungarian are presented for the international public on river and floodplain rehabilitation efforts. Examples for the water management objective are cited from the Tisza and Körös Rivers, while interventions promoting the second, nature conservation (and also forestry and agriculture), aim are mentioned from the Danube and Drava Rivers. A common characteristic of the case studies is that they apply ’hard engineering’ solutions to environmental problems. Although water availability in the Szigetköz floodplain has substantially improved after the building of the bottom weir, the efficiency of the recently implemented engineering measures (the emergency reservoirs along the Tisza and water replenishment structures along the Drava) is too early to judge