History
Water management planning in the Czech Republic has a long tradition. For example, absence of water management plans would have made it impossible to build fish pond systems in Pardubice region and in South Bohemia in the 16th century as well as to build the dams in North Bohemia in the beginning of 20th century as a result of industrial development and the flood protection needs. The foundations of the present-day water management planning were laid by the works dating back to the 1940s. The “Moravian Water Management Plan“ was developed in 1941, the “Waterways and Water Management Planning in Bohemia and Moravia“ dates back to 1946 and the “General Plan of Water Management Development in the Czech and Moravian-Silesian Lands as the Basis of Systematic Planning“ was drawn up in 1947.
The National Water Management Plan of the Czechoslovak Republic, which was developed in the period 1949-1953, and its update in the years 1975-1976 under the name The General Water Management Plan of the Czechoslovak Republic – 2nd edition can be, with the benefit of hindsight, assessed from several aspects. On the one hand the plan provided a coherent view of the potential of water resources exploitation, initiated systematic monitoring of water and water management balance, established the concept of drinking water supply by the group water supply mains and regional water supply mains and facilitated organization of watercourse management by river basins. On the other hand it suggested investment measures according to the water use prediction which was excessively a product of its time and after 1990 ceased to be valid.