The priorities of the Ministry of Agriculture are flood protection and support for the development of water supply and sewerage networks. We look after our watercourses via state-owned enterprises managing the Vltava, Elbe, Morava, Oder a Ohře river basins. We are increasing the security of our watercourses and strengthening flood protection, and provide support for pond cleaning and the construction of water supply and sewerage systems.The Czech Republic is known as the “roof” of Europe. Its main hydrographic network consists of approximately 100,801 kilometres of watercourses (running through both natural and modified channels).
The Ministry of Agriculture is the founder of five state-owned “River Basin” enterprises (“Povodí”) and the state-owned enterprise “Forests of the Czech Republic” (“Lesy České republiky”), which perform the role of watercourse administrators and currently manage around 94% of all Czech watercourses by length. A further 6% of watercourses are managed by other entities, including the Ministry of Defence, the National Parks Administration, and additional natural and legal persons.
Since 2011 the state-owned River Basin and Forests enterprises have also taken over the management of the small watercourses transferred from the former Agricultural Water Management Authority (AWMA).
