VTEI / Current Issue

Current Issue

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

, and –

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.

Geographic data citations: case study of DIBAVOD – systematic review

and –

Society, mainly through state and public institutions, spends considerable funds on the acquisition, management and sharing of data acquired with public funds, including scientific data. Evaluating the success of an open data policy is very problematic. One possibility is to use the citations of these datasets to track the use of open data. Dataset citation is a relatively new field and still faces a number of methodological and technical challenges, including little awareness in the scientific community of the positives of dataset citation. Also problematic is the low level of skill in citing datasets, which generally leads to different forms and ways of citations. In this study, an analysis was performed of the citations of the geographic database DIBAVOD, which is managed by T. G. Masaryk Water Research Institute. In total, 122 citing documents were included in the study. The study showed that the forms and methods of citation vary widely and do not show any discernible trends over time. Only the number of citations shows a slightly increasing trend. Almost a quarter of the papers then only mentioned the use of DIBAVOD without indicating the source of this data or citing it in another form.

The jewels of our running waters and their protection

, and –

Freshwater ecosystems are among the most threatened habitats in the world [1]. This is the result of many factors that, individually and in combination, directly affect the degradation of freshwater ecosystems. The biggest problem for these habitats is climate change. Its consequence is drying up, as well as many anthropogenic negative impacts, such as eutrophication, drainage, introduction of invasive species, and overall environmental degradation [1]. Given these facts, species inhabiting sensitive aquatic environments are among the most endangered plant and animal species in the world.

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.

The “Water Centre” project is in its second half and presents its results

–

The Environment for Life programme, funded by the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic, has created research centers focused on environmental issues. One of them is the “Change4Water”, which is the acronym of the “Water Management in the Czech Republic in the Context of Climate Change” project. The lead organization is T. G. Masaryk Water Research Institute, p. r. i. (TGM WRI). Other seven partner organizations are the Nature Conservation Agency of the Czech Republic (NCA CR), Czech University of Life Sciences (CZU), Czech Technical University in Prague, Faculty of Civil Engineering (FCE CTU), Czech Hydrometeorological Institute (CHMI), CzechGlobe, The Silva Tarouca Research Institute for Landscape and Ornamental Gardening, p. r. i. (VÚKOZ), and the University of Chemistry and Technology, Prague (UCT). The project duration is from July 2020 to December 2026, so currently halfway through its duration.

Czech Copernicus User Forum and Remote Sensing Conference 2024 and the opening of Czech Space Week 2024 with participation of the President of the Czech Republic

, and –

In November 2024, a conference was held focused on the use of satellite data, organized by the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute (CHMI) and the Ministry of Transport (MoT), under the auspices of the President of the Czech Republic, who delivered the opening speech. In addition to expert workshops and panel discussions, the conference also featured several interesting contributions from the Transport and Environment Ministries, which illustrated the real-world use of remote sensing data in applications focused on ecological burdens and hydrological forecasting, as well as climate change, transport monitoring, and landscape planning. One of the most important conclusions of the conference is the confirmation of the importance of remote sensing data in the daily work of not only state institutions, but also commercial companies. These data give us the spatial context of selected natural phenomena and processes that would be monitored only partially or not at all without these data.