Geografie 1974, 79, 94-100
Observations of Groundwaters on the Territory of Czechoslovakia
The purpose of observations of groundwaters is the knowledge of their regime and the study of dependences betwee the formation of groundwater storage and climatic and hydrogeological factors. The results of these observations are important from the point of view of an exact evalution of the storage and of the amount of groundwater which can be employed. Besides that they have their significance also in the solution of problems in connection with various unfavourable interventions done into the groundwater regime and especially of those connected with their, contamination which occurs ever more frequently. Sporadic observations of groundwaters on the territory of Czechoslovakia were conducted already at the end of last century, a development of them, however, was brought about only in the years forty a fifty of this century when numerous observation objects were established on the trace of the projected Oder-Danube canal in Moravia and in the Lowlands of Podunajská and Východoslovenská nížina in Slovakia. On the rest of the territory of Czechoslovakia in this period, however, observations of groundwaters were nearly not conducted at all. A systematical building of the groundwater observation network was started only after the establishment of the Hvdrometeorological Insitute in 1954, especially in the years 1958-1968, when the basic network was being built of objects for the observation of shallow groundwater levels. A review of the development of the observation network of groundwaters and of springs on the territory of Czechoslovakia in the period 1931-1970 is contained in Table 1. This table lists only objects observed by the hydrological service and it does not comprise short-term and unsystematic observations undertaken by various organisations concerned with water economy. At the present time the observation objects for groundwater observation in Czechoslovakia are divided into three types of observation networks. The first is the basic observation network formed by representative objects in which long-term observations are conducted, the results of which give a complete review of the groundwater regime on the territory of the Czechoslovakia. The second is the network for special aims which is built in the framework of hydrogeological investigations, construction of works of water economy, extraction of mineral raw materials, etc. These observations are adapted to the respective purpose and, as a rule, they are finished together with the task under solution, with the end of the construction or of the investigations. The last type is constituted by a searching network which comprises all important objects which do not correspond to some presuppositions of the basic network and, in addition to it, also many of the observed springs, out of which only some most convenient, from the viewpoint of their practical use, are then selected.
