Our story from SOUTH BOHEMIA, CZECH REPUBLIC

The locality is situated in South Bohemia, in the region Písecko.

This locality includes the territory of five municipalities – Čížová, Dobev, Drhovle, Písek and Předotice. The pilot site does not include the whole administrative territories of all the named municipalities, but only those that together belong to one compact small basin of the Jiher brook.

The area of territory: 26 km²

Pilot type – this location is mainly agricultural sub-urban, partly industrial too. Areas in this location are mainly used for agriculture (especially fields and partly meadows). Forests (predominantly coniferous) are here representated in relatively little rate. There are many breeding ponds in this location – especially in south-eastern part. In contrast to agricultural land use, an industrial zone is located in the immediate vicinity of the town of Písek.

Land form – this location is moderately hilly – rolling lands.

The locality is situated very close to the town Písek. The town Písek has a job potential and good transport accessibility. It is therefore specific for the locality that it includes the suburban zone of the town Písek intensively used for housing as well as industry and municipalities, which have considerable potential for the development of built-up areas for housing or mixed functions.

Other specifics are:

• territory is considerably divided by eight tributaries of the broom Jiher and significant line engineering structures and their corridors in radial arrangement to the city center,
• there are extensive coupled agricultural land (fields) in the territory – in the area 1000-1200 ha (the area of the pilot locality is 2600 ha.)

Municipalities in the locality have real experience with pluvial floods and they were struggling with the consequences of the heavy rain event. After heavy rains in 2013, two brooks (Mehelnický and Jiher) spilled over the banks. Hradištská and Ostrovní streets in Písek were flooded by Mehelnický brook. Where the Jiher brook broke out of the riverbed, the blocks of flats in the housing estate Portyč were flooded.

In response to the heavy rainfall of 2013, the municipal authority in Písek plans to take appropriate steps to improve flood prevention. It is considered to build a system of ponds and dry polders to provide protection in the event of increased water flow in the Mehelnický and Jiher brooks.

Also other municipalities in this location try to deal with flood protection eliminating the impacts of pluvial floods, but it is more about implementing individual measures, such as the reconstruction of the forest road in Topělec (near Čížová).

To achieve the maximum elimination of the negative impacts of floods caused by torrential rainfall, especially on built-up areas of municipalities, a comprehensive assessment of the entire catchment area into which the rainfall will fall is necessary. This principle is the cornerstone of the “Study of applicability of risk reduction measures in spatial plans”, in which one of the pilot sites is the Písek site.

There are 3 so-called critical points in the locality Písek, which are places where the consequences of torrential rainfall enter the built-up areas of municipalities and start to cause property damage. The aim of the “Study of applicability of risk reduction measures in spatial plans” in the Písek locality is to propose such measures so that the so-called critical points disappear from the territory (ie the consequences of torrential rainfall would be fully captured before entering the built-up areas of municipalities) or at least the consequences of torrential rainfall in built-up areas would be minimized.

Based on the knowledge of local conditions (own research and consultations with the mayors of the municipality), risk reduction measures are proposed for the whole locality with the aim of mitigating the negative impact of torrential rainfall especially on built-up areas of municipalities. In particular, measures are proposed in this locality to eliminate erosive susceptible crops, to support conversion of arable land into grassland or to build up baulks or infiltration belts in the open countryside.

The proposed risk reduction measures are then confronted with the spatial planning documentation of individual municipalities in the locality Písek in the “Study of applicability of risk reduction measures in spatial plans”. From this confrontation it was concluded that none of the proposed measures is directly defined in the valid spatial planning documentation of individual municipality. Although most of the protective measures are designed in the open landscape (in the undeveloped area of municipalities), it has been assessed at all sites that the concept of the land use plan may be affected, in a total of 24 cases. This is due to the fact that the municipalities in this locality have considerable development potential because they are located in close proximity to the town of Písek. The spatial plans of these municipalities therefore propose a significant number of new built-up areas in the area, which is currently undeveloped. Consequently, there is a conflict between the proposed measures and the proposed built-up areas.

For the Písek locality it can be stated that the proposed measures are suitable for the protection of the current state of the territory. However, for coordination with the proposals contained in the spatial plans of individual municipalities, it would be necessary to examine how to modify the proposed measure to take into account and protect the future assumed state of the territory. However, the “Study of applicability of risk reduction measures in spatial plans” in this locality did not go into this detail; nevertheless, a detailed comprehensive solution up to the form of individual changes in spatial plans can be seen at the Lipí site.

More detailed information about this locality can be found in the study (here) or it is possible to see specific proposal measure from this locality “Proposal of the interaction element – Baulk near Drhovle” prepared as an example of good practice (here).