Czechia is drying out like in 1947. Will water return to the rivers at all?

01Terms

Drought has four faces, and each arrives at a different time

Ask anyone about drought and they picture something different. Meteorologists mean missing rain, farmers dried-out soil, hydrologists falling rivers, reservoirs and groundwater. Finally come the impacts on people who lack water at home, in the field or in the well.

These four forms follow one another with a delay. First the rain stops, within weeks the soil dries out, then rivers fall, and groundwater reacts only after months, sometimes years. That is why, after heavy rain, the soil can turn damp while rivers and wells keep falling for a long time.

The ČHMÚ issues warnings for three types of drought, namely drought in surface water, drought in groundwater, and hydrological drought, which affects both at once. On the ČHMÚ map, the colour orange marks municipalities with extended powers (the larger administrative districts) that are affected by hydrological drought.

02Numbers

The sky was stingier with rain than at any time since 1961

According to preliminary ČHMÚ data, only 289 mm of precipitation fell on Czechia from 1 January to 10 August, that is 66% of the 1991–2020 normal, the least since 1961. The total is almost identical to the exceptionally dry year 2015. According to preliminary data, spring was even the driest, with only 89 mm falling in three months.

The heat dealt another blow, because repeated heatwaves since June, according to the ČHMÚ, markedly increased how much water can evaporate from the landscape and from water surfaces. For example, on 31 July the mean daily temperature in Prague-Ruzyně came out at 28.1 °C and in Brno-Tuřany at 30.8 °C, according to ČHMÚ data. By mid-August the amount of water in the soil had fallen below 10% of usable water capacity across most of the territory.

03Curiosities

If you see me, weep. What drought brings up from the riverbed

In Děčín, on the left bank of the Labe river under the Tyršův most (Tyrš Bridge), lies a rock in the riverbed known as the hunger stone (hladový kámen). It emerges when water levels are low, and people carved years and inscriptions into it that bear witness to dry years. The oldest legible inscription dates from 1616.

The best-known inscription reads, in German, ‘Wenn du mich siehst, dann weine’, and in Czech ‘Když mě uvidíš, plač’ (‘If you see me, weep’). A younger Czech inscription, according to the city portal, does the opposite and comforts a girl, telling her not to cry or lament, because when it is dry the fields will be sprinkled.

According to the city, the stone is visible on average 126 days in a normal hydrological year. After the dams were built on the Vltava river, it appeared much more often after 1926 than before. Because of the extreme drought of recent years, another hunger stone was discovered at Těchlovice.

Dams running out of water

The Husinec reservoir in the Prachaticko area almost dried up, the first Czech dam to do so. On 6 October only 30 thousand cubic metres of water remained in its storage space, that is 1.3% of the usual volume, and the level was seven metres lower than usual. The director of the plant that manages the reservoir said that nothing like it had happened during his time there.

At the beginning of September, Povodí Vltavy (the Vltava river basin authority) announced that it would, for the first time in history, use the storage space of the Slapy dam to top up water in rivers. On 4 September the level of Orlík was 15 metres lower than usual and the two reservoirs together held 47% of the usual volume. Without topping up from them, the flow of the Vltava in Prague would then have been only around ten to 15 cubic metres per second.

Drinking water from water-supply reservoirs is doing better for now. Petr Kubala, managing director of Povodí Vltavy, said on 8 October that all reservoirs supplying drinking water are sufficiently full and that restrictions on supplies are not a threat.

04Underground

Water vanishes where we cannot see, and wells feel it first

Groundwater reacts to drought and to rain with a lag of months. According to hydrologists, a single shower or a week of rain does not raise the level, because water accumulates over months and years. Depletion, however, can come very quickly.

Shallow dug wells and springs are fed from layers just below the surface, and so they react to missing rain sooner than deep boreholes. According to the preliminary ČHMÚ assessment for September, shallow groundwater and spring yield were exceptionally below normal, the worst for September since 1981. Deep boreholes are not safe either, as their level was again exceptionally below normal.

In mid-August, according to the ČHMÚ, 70% of monitored groundwater showed strong or extreme drought, and in mid-October levels remained exceptionally below average. In its outlook of 15 October, the ČHMÚ expects them to stay steady or fall slightly.

When a well weakens

1. 01

   Measure how much water is left

   Find out how deep the water level is and how fast it falls during pumping, so that you know whether it is a fluctuation or a lasting decline.

2. 02

   Pump little and often

   Limit watering and large withdrawals, and let the well refill between pumping sessions before you draw it down to the bottom.

3. 03

   Protect the pump

   Do not let the pump run dry at a very low level, otherwise it will be damaged quickly and silt will get into the house.

4. 04

   Seek advice before deepening

   Deepening a well or drilling a new borehole may require permission from the water authority, and a hydrologist warns that deepening alone will not help in the future.

5. 05

   Look for another source

   According to a hydrologist, municipalities with threatened local sources should negotiate in good time with water companies about connecting to a group water supply.

05Forest and fields

Forest, field and garden are thirsty. Who feels it first

Drought weakens trees, and a weakened tree defends itself less well against the bark beetle. In September Lesy ČR (Forests of the Czech Republic, the state forestry company) said that this year's drought had noticeably weakened forests, and it is preparing an extraordinary survey of their condition. The biggest bark beetle calamity so far broke out in 2018, and at its peak in 2020 the company harvested more than 14 million cubic metres of wood, almost double the usual volume.

According to the InterSucho drought-monitoring project, this year's growing season has definitively ended in terms of wood formation, so trees will not grow any more this year. Soil drought, however, will keep deepening. The outlook of 15 October expects that within a few days the two worst levels of soil drought may cover almost a third of the territory of Czechia.

Drought also raises the risk of fires. The governor of Jihomoravský kraj (a region in the south-east of the country) declared a period of increased fire danger from 31 July until further notice, during which lighting open fires is banned in threatened places, including forests and the area within 50 metres of them. Jihočeský kraj (a region in the south) in turn declared a state of drought, which, among other things, makes it easier to handle outflow from reservoirs.

The Ministry of Agriculture publishes an overview of issued restrictions on water use as an annex to its monthly report on the state of water resources. In it you can find where the authorities have issued restrictions on water withdrawal.

06Return of water

When will the water return? One rainy week is not enough

Rain that falls on parched ground does not all soak in where we need it most. Part runs off the hardened surface, part evaporates and part is used by plants, so only the remainder reaches the river and the groundwater.

According to the InterSucho project, rainfall before the beginning of October barely saturated the surface layer of soil, and deeper layers have remained unsaturated since the start of spring. That is why water could not drain beneath the surface into rivers either.

By mid-August, according to preliminary ČHMÚ data, on average about 146 mm of precipitation was missing compared with the normal, that is 146 litres on every square metre. September did not wipe out the debt either, with only 44 mm falling in it, preliminarily, that is 73% of the normal. The drought also follows on from 2025, whose first half was the driest since 1961, and the winter of 2025/2026 did not sufficiently replenish water stocks in the landscape or in some reservoirs.

On 8 October the director of Povodí Vltavy estimated that a return to some normal state would require two, three or four months of rain. According to him, the rain that the ČHMÚ forecast for ten days from 8 October could not help the Vltava river basin.

In its outlook of 15 October, the ČHMÚ expects the number of river gauging profiles in a state of drought to keep growing and river levels to remain steady or only slightly fluctuating. In the week before 15 October they were still mostly well below average.

So will water return to the rivers at all? It will, but not quickly, and it will return fully only after months of heavy rain and a winter that supplies the landscape with water. What kind of winter it will be, nobody knows yet, and it will decide whether the landscape enters spring in debt or with a reserve.

07What you can do

What you can do before the rain returns

According to the water company Veolia, the average inhabitant of Czechia uses 93 litres of water a day. The biggest savings often hide where water leaks away without our noticing.

Five steps you can take right away

1. 01

   Water in the morning or evening

   Morning or evening watering stops water from evaporating before plants can use it.

2. 02

   One bigger dose a week

   One thorough watering a week does a garden more good than several short sprays that wet only the surface.

3. 03

   Catch rainwater

   Use rainwater collected in barrels for watering, and keep them ready under the gutter for the next rain.

4. 04

   Fix what leaks

   Repair a dripping tap and a leaking toilet as soon as possible, because they lose more water than you would think.

5. 05

   Check for restrictions and the fire ban

   Check with your municipality or the authority whether water withdrawal from watercourses has been restricted in your area or lighting fires banned.

Rainwater tanks were subsidised by the Dešťovka (rainwater) programme, announced by the Ministry of the Environment in spring 2017. In 2021 it covered up to half of costs, and a family house could receive up to 105 thousand Czech koruna. These are, however, the conditions from 2021, so check the current offer.

08Did you know

Did you know that drought…