Selected licit and illicit drugs in surface water in sampling profiles near wastewater treatment plant outlets

The majority of the population (85 %) in the Czech Republic is connected to the public sewerage network of almost 3,000 wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). Municipal wastewater contains a number of substances providing information on the state of the population. This information is evaluated by Wastewater-Based Epidemiology (WBE). A WWTP does not remove all contaminants that are discharged into the recipient. In this study, the loading of a recipient with selected licit and illicit drugs was monitored.

Flash flood in Brdy PLA in June 2024

The article documents the course of the flash flood at the beginning of June 2024 in Brdy PLA, in the Příbram Region, including reflection on its causes and possibilities for limiting the consequences of this type of flood in the future. Publicly available information was evaluated from the hydrometeorological situation in the Archive of weekly reports on the CHMI website for the nearest station to the flood-affected area, namely Neumětely station. In that week, the highest weekly precipitation total for the Czech Republic was recorded at Neumětely station. When evaluating landscape development based on archival maps or orthophoto maps, changes with some negative effects on water retention in the landscape were observed. It was mainly the gradual expansion of urban development into the original mosaic of dry or wet meadows and small fields, straightening and piping of watercourses, ploughing their floodplains, land reclamation of spring areas, and their subsequent replacement with arable land.

Interview with Dr. Ing. Antonín Tůma, Deputy General Director of the Morava Basin State Enterprise

For the February issue of VTEI, we interviewed a long-time employee of the Morava Basin State Enterprise, the director of the Basin administration, and since 2006 the deputy general director of this organization. A man for whom water management is not a job, but a mission. “Water is the carrier of not only life, but also information and energy. Something so simple, yet so extraordinary, irreplaceable…,” says Dr. Ing. Antonín Tůma.