Hydrography of Hungary
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The hydrology of Hungary, is mostly determined by Hungary's lying in the middle of the Carpathian Basin, half surrounded by the
Carpathian Mountains The Carpathian Mountains or Carpathians () are a range of mountains forming an arc across Central Europe. Roughly long, it is the third-longest European mountain range after the Urals at and the Scandinavian Mountains at . The range stretches ...
. All parts of the country have some outflow. All surface water gravitates towards its southern center, and from there, is united in the Danube, which flows into the Black Sea. The whole of Hungary lies within the Danube drainage basin. The total length of all the irrigation systems and inland waterways in the country is about . The annual water balance of the country shows a surplus. Yearly about of water leaves the country towards the Black Sea. From that, precipitation amounts for only 10%, the rest being provided by the incoming rivers of surrounding countries.


Rivers

Hydro graphically Hungary can be divided into two roughly equal parts: the drainage basins of the Danube and the Tisza. The present network of Hungary's rivers began to take shape at the end of the Tertiary and the beginning of the
Quaternary The Quaternary ( ) is the current and most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS). It follows the Neogene Period and spans from 2.58 million years ...
periods when the
Pannonian Sea The Pannonian Sea was a shallow ancient lake, where the Pannonian Basin in Central Europe is now. The Pannonian Sea existed from about 10 Ma (million years ago) until 1 Ma, during the Miocene and Pliocene epochs, when marine sediments were dep ...
retreated from the basin. The rivers in Hungary reach their lowest level at the end of the summer, the beginning of the autumn, or sometimes in the winter. Both the Danube and the Tisza have two regular floods each year, the early spring "icy flood" and the early summer "green flood". The "icy flood" is the result of the thaw in the mountains surrounding the Carpathian Basin, when the rivers in the plain are usually still frozen. Before the river flows were controlled, the piled-up ice sheets of the river could form tremendous barriers, which in turn could cause devastating floods. This phenomenon can still be a real danger after cold winters, and a small fleet of icebreakers is used on the two rivers to fight against ice barrages. The "green" flood in the early summer carries a much larger amount of water, not only the torrents from the Alps, but also the
surface runoff Surface runoff (also known as overland flow) is the flow of water occurring on the ground surface when excess rainwater, stormwater, meltwater, or other sources, can no longer sufficiently rapidly infiltrate in the soil. This can occur when th ...
water from the May and June rains.


Danube

The Danube runs through several countries, and in Hungary is known as the hu, Duna.


History

The primeval Danube first silted up the basin of the Pannonian Sea which now forms the Eastern Slovak Lowland on the left bank of the river and the Little Hungarian Plain on the right bank. It flowed towards the south into Transdanubia and then followed the present-day course of the
Drava The Drava or Drave''Utrata Fachwörterbuch ...
into an interior lake system in the south of the present
Great Plain The Great Plains (french: Grandes Plaines), sometimes simply "the Plains", is a broad expanse of flatland in North America. It is located west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains, much of it covered in prairie, steppe, a ...
. Later the Danube was diverted to the east by tectonic uplift, finding an outlet through the Visegrád gap. During the
Quaternary The Quaternary ( ) is the current and most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS). It follows the Neogene Period and spans from 2.58 million years ...
the Great Plain continued to sink, meanwhile the Börzsöny and the Visegrád mountains were rising. The result was the
gorge A canyon (from ; archaic British English spelling: ''cañon''), or gorge, is a deep cleft between escarpments or cliffs resulting from weathering and the erosion, erosive activity of a river over geologic time scales. Rivers have a natural tenden ...
, or a deep terraced valley cut through the mountains by the Danube at what is now the
Danube Bend The Danube Bend ( hu, Dunakanyar) is a curve of the Danube in Hungary, close to the town of Visegrád. Geology The present-day U-shaped loop is probably the result of an eruption of the volcano stretching over the whole area some 15 million y ...
at Visegrád, between Esztergom and Vác. Once through the gorge, the Danube fanned out into the Great Hungarian Plain, depositing alluvial cones. The present north-south course was formed by the river in the late Pleistocene.


Geography

The Danube is the second longest river in Europe, after the Volga. Its upper flow is outside of Hungary, but its middle section starts at Devín, close to the Hungarian border. This section of the river stretches until the Iron Gate, between Serbia and Romania. The lower section of the river crosses the Romanian Plain and flows into the Black Sea through a
delta Delta commonly refers to: * Delta (letter) (Δ or δ), a letter of the Greek alphabet * River delta, at a river mouth * D (NATO phonetic alphabet: "Delta") * Delta Air Lines, US * Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2 that causes COVID-19 Delta may also re ...
. The Hungarian section of the river is long, from which forms the border between Hungary and Slovakia, from Rusovce to the mouth of the Ipeľ ().


Navigation

The Danube is navigable for the whole of its course through Hungary with a minimum depth.


Flow and flooding

The Danube has been mostly controlled since the 19th century. There is about of flood-protected area along the banks of the Danube in Hungary, with about of dykes. No stretch of land along the river is left open to the floods. The Danube has a rate of flow of at its fastest, and at its slowest, in the region of Budapest. The difference between water levels can be as high as . The present flood prevention possibilities are enough to cope with rises up to about above the low-water mark, but there are from time to time very dangerous floods.


Tributaries

The right-hand tributaries of the Danube inside Hungary do not add greatly to its volume. The largest are the
Lajta The Leitha (; or , formerly ; Czech language, Czech and sk, Litava) is a river in Austria and Hungary, a right tributary of the Danube. It is long ( including its source river Schwarza (Leitha), Schwarza). Its basin area is . Etymology The '' ...
, the Rába, the Rábca and the Marcal. The Sárvíz is joined by the Sió which drains Lake Balaton. The Sió is also fed by the river Kapos. The only right-hand tributary of any considerable volume is the
Drava The Drava or Drave''Utrata Fachwörterbuch ...
, which forms also on a large stretch the Hungarian- Croatian border, but joins the Danube already inside Croatia.


Tisza


History

The present course of the Tisza was established relatively recently in geological time. Until the end of the Pleistocene it flowed along the southern border of the Nyírség area in north-eastern Hungary, but later it changed its flow forming a right-angled bend to the north of the Nyírség. The Tisza and its tributaries built up very large, but flat alluvial cones along the edges of the Great Plain.


Geography

The drainage basin of the Tisza is in the eastern part of the Carpathian Basin. of this is in Hungary, mostly lowland. Before its control in the 19th century its full length was , of which were within the present boundaries of Hungary. Its control shortened these lengths to and respectively. In spite of regulation, the Tisza still has a characteristically wide meanders through the
flood plain A floodplain or flood plain or bottomlands is an area of land adjacent to a river which stretches from the banks of its channel to the base of the enclosing valley walls, and which experiences flooding during periods of high discharge.Goudi ...
with
sand dune A dune is a landform composed of wind- or water-driven sand. It typically takes the form of a mound, ridge, or hill. An area with dunes is called a dune system or a dune complex. A large dune complex is called a dune field, while broad, fl ...
s, wide forests and
oxbow lake An oxbow lake is a U-shaped lake or pool that forms when a wide meander of a river is cut off, creating a free-standing body of water. In South Texas, oxbows left by the Rio Grande are called '' resacas''. In Australia, oxbow lakes are call ...
s, some cut off artificially, some naturally. In Hungary the Tisza is a sluggish river with a very gentle gradient. Before it was brought under control it regularly flooded an area of . The volume of water in the Tisza fluctuates even more than that in the Danube because the catchment area is mostly medium-height mountains, and not by high mountains with permanent snow.


Flow and flooding

The Tisza has three floods yearly, the early spring flood from the snow thaw, then the early summer "green flood", brought on by the summer rain, and then a minor flood in the autumn. Its lowest level is in winter. The rate of flow varies at Szolnok between and Before the extensive controls, when the spring floods of the Danube and the Tisza happened to coincide, the Danube could not absorb the water of the Tisza and the resulting flood could cause immense damage throughout the Great Plain. The length of the Tisza dykes now exceeds .


Navigation

The Tisza is navigable for smaller vessels right up to
Dombrád Dombrád is a town in Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg county, in the Northern Great Plain region of eastern Hungary. Etymology The name comes from a Slavic languages, Slavic personal name, compare with Czech language, Czech ''Domorád'', ''Domorod'' or ...
near the north-eastern frontier of the country. In the Trans-Tisza Region (east of the river) extensive areas are irrigated by its water.


Tributaries

The last and largest tributary of the Tisza within Hungary is the
Maros Maros is a town in the South Sulawesi province of Indonesia close to the provincial capital of Makassar. It is the capital of the Maros Regency. Maros is the location of the Indonesian Cereals Research Institute, a branch of the Indonesian A ...
. Among the tributaries of the Tisza the most important on the right side is the Bodrog, which flows into the Tisza at
Tokaj Tokaj () is a historical town in Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén county, Northern Hungary, 54 kilometers from county capital Miskolc. It is the centre of the Tokaj-Hegyalja wine district where Tokaji wine is produced. History The wine-growing area wa ...
. Their confluence has often changed, as is graphically illustrated by the extensive oxbow lakes and belts of shallows in the vicinity of Tokaj. The next right-hand tributary of the Tisza is the Hornád, which receives earlier also the waters of the
Bódva The Bodva (, , german: Bodwa) is a 110-km long river in Slovakia and Hungary. Its source is in the Slovak Ore Mountains. The river crosses the border with Hungary near Turňa nad Bodvou, and it flows into the river Sajó in Boldva, north of Misko ...
and the Sajó. Below Tiszafüred the river takes up the
Eger river Eger ( , ; ; also known by other alternative names) is the county seat of Heves County, and the second largest city in Northern Hungary (after Miskolc). A city with county rights. Eger is best known for its castle, thermal baths, baroque bui ...
and at Szolnok the Zagyva which already collected the waters of Galga and
Tápió The hydrology of Hungary, is mostly determined by Hungary's lying in the middle of the Carpathian Basin, half surrounded by the Carpathian Mountains. All parts of the country have some outflow. All surface water gravitates towards its southern ce ...
. To the south from this point no more streams run into the Tisza from the ridge which separates it from the Danube. The eastern slope of this ridge is only broken by dried-out valleys. The more significant left-hand tributes of the Tisza include the Szamos with the Kraszna, the Körös, which is usually called Treble Körös, because it gathers up the water of several minor rivers, ( White Körös, Black Körös, Rapid Körös, Berettyó and the Hortobágy river). Before the great river controls of the 19th century this region was an almost endless stretch of marshlands and fens. Today there is a system of irrigation canals in the area.


Canals

''The river is spelt Tisa in other languages. In Hungarian the spelling is Tisza, but it is not assonated.'' In the late 19th century, during the large-scale controls, canal systems were also created partly as artificial waterways, partly to help the agricultural use of land, and partly to conduct away superfluous inland water. The most important canal of Transdanubia is the Sió connecting Lake Balaton and the Danube. The Hanság Canal goes across a boggy land between the
Lake Fertő Lake Neusiedl (german: Neusiedler See), or Fertő ( hu, Fertő (tó); hr, Nežidersko jezero, Niuzaljsko jezero; sl, Nežidersko jezero; sk, Neziderské jazero; cs, Neziderské jezero) is the largest endorheic lake in Central Europe, straddl ...
and the Danube. The long Main Eastern Canal, which was only finished after 1945, crosses the drier parts of the Great Hungarian Plain to the east of the Tisza.


Lakes

Hungary is not very rich in lakes, and their basins are no older than the late Pleistocene. There is no really deep lake in the country. The shallower waters warm up quickly in summer, and water temperatures of are quite common, which makes them very pleasant for bathing. Lake Balaton is the biggest in Central Europe. It covers , being long and up to wide. It lies above mean sea level and has an average depth of , with its deepest point being at
Tihany Tihany /ˈtihɒɲ/ is a village on the northern shore of Lake Balaton on the Tihany Peninsula (Hungary, Veszprém County). The whole peninsula is a historical district. The center of the district is the Benedictine Tihany Abbey, which was founde ...
, at .
Evaporation Evaporation is a type of vaporization that occurs on the surface of a liquid as it changes into the gas phase. High concentration of the evaporating substance in the surrounding gas significantly slows down evaporation, such as when humidi ...
from the lake is greater than the inflow from small rivers and streams. The deficit is compensated by rainwater and underground sources. The occasional surplus water leaves the lake through the canalised Sió. During the Pleistocene the lake was much larger, and deep. The southern shore of Lake Balaton is extremely shallow, the average depth only being reached at a distance of from the shore. There is a long
beach ridge A beach ridge is a wave-swept or wave-deposited ridge running parallel to a shoreline. It is commonly composed of sand as well as sediment worked from underlying beach material. The movement of sediment by wave action is called ''littoral tra ...
, covered by sand, on the southern shore, built up by the waves underneath the dominant north-westerly wind. The northern shore is more varied, with the
Tihany Tihany /ˈtihɒɲ/ is a village on the northern shore of Lake Balaton on the Tihany Peninsula (Hungary, Veszprém County). The whole peninsula is a historical district. The center of the district is the Benedictine Tihany Abbey, which was founde ...
Peninsula, and it has steeper beach shelves. At the lake the summertime is long, beginning in May and lingering to the end of September. The air temperature may be in the region of to , the water temperature to . The water temperature does not sink below to in the summer even if there is a cold front. This enormous body of water creates a very pleasant mesoclimate on the shores of the lake. Sudden storms can whip up dangerous, steep waves on the surface of the lake. Their average height is , and their average length is . A prevailing north-easterly or south-westerly wind can push the water from the eastern basin of the lake (to the east of the Tihany Peninsula) into the western basin or on the contrary, resulting in water levels differing by from normal, which creates strong currents. The lake freezes almost every winter, the thickness of the ice can reach , which creates good opportunities for sport. The second largest lake of Hungary is Lake Fertő () on the border with Austria. Its water level and shore line have been changed over time very widely. The lake is very shallow, with an average water level of . The greater part of its surface is covered with reeds, huge quantities of which are used industrially. A quarter of the lake's area of lies in Hungary, with the other three-quarters in Austria. The adjacent marshy Hanság was drained by the Hanság Canal. The third largest lake in Hungary, Lake Velence is a
steppe lake An endorheic basin (; also spelled endoreic basin or endorreic basin) is a drainage basin that normally retains water and allows no outflow to other external bodies of water, such as rivers or oceans, but drainage converges instead into lakes ...
in an advanced stage of alluviation. Its surface area is , but only is open water, the rest being covered by reeds. It is a popular holiday resort, being close to Budapest.


Swamps and marshes

The
Little Balaton Little is a synonym for small size and may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Little'' (album), 1990 debut album of Vic Chesnutt * ''Little'' (film), 2019 American comedy film *The Littles, a series of children's novels by American author John P ...
was originally a part of the larger lake, but now it is mostly a swamp and marsh area at the south-western corner of the Balaton with a highly characteristic wildlife. It is a protected natural reserve. Before the extensive controls of the 19th century there were a lot of marshes and swamps in the country like the Sárrét of Transdanubia or the Ecsed Moorland close to the north-eastern corner of the country. They have been drained, reclaimed and transformed into land fit for farming. Spring-water lakes are a special class of natural lakes in Hungary. They are fed mostly by
warm spring ''Warm Spring'' () is a 2003 Chinese film produced by Shanxi Film Studio. Wulan Tana was the director and writer of this film which won her the Golden Rooster Award for Best Directorial Debut in 2003. The film was also named one of three Bes ...
s, but karstic ones also occur (
Lake Hévíz Lake Hévíz is located in Hévíz, Hungary, near the western end of Lake Balaton, from Keszthely. It is the largest swimmable thermal lake in the world ( in area), second only to Frying Pan Lake in New Zealand, which is too hot for swimming. T ...
, the Malom Pool in Budapest,
Tapolca Tapolca (; german: Toppoltz) is a town in Veszprém County, Hungary, close to Lake Balaton. It is located at around . The town has an outer suburb, Tapolca-Diszel, approximately 5 km to the East. Etymology The origin of ''Tapolca'' is ...
). The alkaline Lake Fehér near Szeged has no outlet. It is a famous nature reserve in Körös-Maros National Park.


Underground water

Underground water is very important in Hungary, especially on the Great Plain.
Stratum In geology and related fields, a stratum ( : strata) is a layer of rock or sediment characterized by certain lithologic properties or attributes that distinguish it from adjacent layers from which it is separated by visible surfaces known as ei ...
water is abundant because Hungary is in the middle of the Carpathian Basin. These water resources are between two impermeable strata underlying the first impervious stratum beneath the underground water. They are predominantly of rainfall origin, mostly not from Hungary, but from the surrounding higher-lying parts of the Carpathian Basin. This water, when brought to the surface from great depths, is rich in various mineral solutions and may be very hot. Deep boring for stratum water has been carried out throughout the country. There are about twenty-eight thousand
artesian well An artesian aquifer is a confined aquifer containing groundwater under positive pressure. An artesian aquifer has trapped water, surrounded by layers of impermeable rock or clay, which apply positive pressure to the water contained within th ...
s in the Great Plain alone, out of a total of thirty-five thousand for the whole country. Their depth varies from . In the hilly and mountainous regions of Mesozoic limestone, karstic water is also important.


Budapest dam

It is understood that a large earth dam was built upstream of Budapest, downstream of Vienna in the latter part of the 20th century, amassing a considerable quantity of water into an artificial lake, and should this earth bank break, similarly to what happened at Kolontar, 2010, and Vajont 1963 Budapest would be flooded uncontrollably. It is a matter of historical record that the building of this Danube Dam was banned in the Diplomatic District of London in advance by a march and a Note Verbale handed in to the Austrian Embassy, and colour photographs being taken of the principal participants in the action. What is this?


See also

* List of rivers of Hungary


References


Sources

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Hydrography Of Hungary Hydrography by country Geography of Hungary