The lessons learned from floods over the past few years have induced all
those involved in flood protection in the Czech Republic to review the country‘s
existing flood protection system and create measures to improve its operation.
The implementation of improved measures was supported by Decree No.185/1998
of the Czech Government and by a number of national and international projects.
Along the same lines, the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute, CHMI, has
reviewed its flood forecast service and designed a set of measures for its
improvement which - finances permitting – will be gradually implemented
in the areas of meteorology, hydrology, dissemination of information and
forecasts.
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For operative information about precipitation, CHMI relies on:
• automatic collection of data from the system of reporting stations,
and the supplement of the network according to the need of entries into
hydrological models, especially in the mountainous regions;
• information from meteorological radars. With the recently built radars
in Moravia and another one in central Bohemia, the radar system is now complete.
A system of ongoing calibration of radar information about fallen precipitation
is being developed and gradually implemented;
• outputs of numerical models operated by the meteorological services
of some European countries and ALADIN regional model, which is computed
in Prague;
• information produced by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather
Forecast based in Reading, U.K., which produces the forecast of meteorological
elements including precipitation for 10 days ahead. CHMI gained access to
these data in 2001.
For information on discharges and flood forecasting, CHMI depends on:
• its own and the catchment companies‘ current reporting watergauging
network, which is sufficient for flood forecasting on the main streams and
only in some regions will need to be supplemented;
• automatic collection of data from watergauging stations, which is
currently being carried out by several transmission systems both at CHMI
and the catchment companies;
• hydrological forecasting models calibrated for all main streams in
the Czech Republic. In the year 2001 the models were experimentally operated
daily by CHMI forecasters and as a standard produce forecast for 48 hours
in advance.
CHMI’s central forecasting unit disseminates information to flood institutions
and other national and regional-level users (including catchment companies),
and the regional forecasting units do the same at the level of districts
and large cities. After the large floods of the 1990s, the system of flood
reporting service was overhauled by the Ministry of the Environment. It
is now necessary to update the flood forecasting service.
Due to its simplicity, the usual way of expressing the extent of flood danger
in degrees of flood activity is suitable for all levels of flood service.
The legislative basis for flood forecasting and reporting service is provided
by the new Water Law which ensures availability of information for flood
institutions, crisis management institutions and the integrated rescue system.
Although the relationship between flood institutions and institutions of
crisis management is regulated by the relevant laws, the efficiency of the
system has yet to prove itself in future large floods.
Throughout the flood of August 2002, both CHMI’s meteorologists and
hydrologists were busy preparing reports and forecasts for decision-taking
bodies and the general public and supporting the rescue system. Overall,
the flood protection and rescue system worked very well and many protective
measures were carried out during the flood including the evacuation of people.
In comparison, the system proved to be more effective than it was during
the previous catastrophic flood in Moravia in 1997. Apparently, the experience
gained from the flood in Moravia and the subsequent adoption of new laws
about crisis management and the integrated rescue system (IRS) had a positive
impact on institutional response to the flood of August 2002.
Crises management and IRS were functioning in the Czech Republic for the
first time. Following a timely declaration of a state of emergency by the
prime minister, the central crises management body swung into action and
efficiently dealt with most problems by heavily relying on meteorological
and hydrological information provided by CHMI. Regional crises bodies also
worked very well with the exception of some problems in Prague. The projects
for the research, development and application of modern methods to forecasting
(in the case of CHMI the development of meteorological and hydrological
modelling) should be supported by the government and so should a modernisation
of the monitoring networks. Crises management laws in general should also
be upgraded.