Vystoupení pana RNDr. Pavla Punčocháře, CSc.












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            * Vystoupení pana RNDr. Pavla Punčocháře, CSc.
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            Your Royal Highness,

            Your Excellency,
            Dear Ministers,
            Spectabilis,

            Ladies and Gentlemen,

            at the beginning of my speech I would like to express many thanks to Your Royal Highness i

            all Czech water managers for your activities dedicated to the global problems of water res
            sustainability. The Award of the Charles University certainly reflects our appreciation of

            in performing the World Water Vision.

            This is not surprising as the Netherlands represents not only European but worldwide sourc

            and research knowledge in water management.

            Since the political changes in Europe in 1989, I had the opportunity to develop the resear

            with Dutch water management institutions – particularly with the RIZA and Delft Hydraulic.
            first catastrophic flood affecting the Czech Republic in 1997, the Ministry of Agriculture
            offer presented by the Netherlands to help our country in the area of flood protection. Af

            project entitled “Renewal of flood damages and strategic flood protection” was realised du
            that responded to the need to improve the quality and accuracy of forecasting the flood de
            addition to the know-how transfer, 5 automated flow-rate metering stations were installed 

            basin threatened by local flooding.

            The co-operation established between the water managers of both our countries continued in

            second project that is just now being concluded.

            This second project once again represented a generous help provided by the Dutch governmen

            the project was arranged by Dutch and Czech water managers less than one month after the d
            in 2002 that affected the capital of the Czech Republic, Prague, as well.


            Development of floods on our territory, as well as in the whole Europe, has shown the nece
            attention mainly to prevention. That was the reason why the Czech government approved the 
            Prevention against Floods in the Czech Republic followed by programmes of measures. Furthe

            introduced the new water management legislation and a special act on integrated crisis man
            aim to reduce the catastrophic impacts of floods.


            In this sense, the outputs of joint project entitled “Strengthening the Risk Analysis in C
            Management” will definitely improve our flood prevention strategy.
            The project was co-ordinated again very efficiently by the ARCADIS company and well-known 

            institutions contributed to its realisation – namely the TNO Bouw, RIZA, Waterschap Groot 

            I would like to stress the general benefits of project outputs for the European water mana

            knowledge is missing in most of the countries. The results therefore can be used for exten
            operation between the EU Member States and other countries.


            Due to the reasons just mentioned I would like to express that we highly appreciate suppor
            Kingdom of Netherlands to Czech water management, especially in the area of flood protecti


            Finally, I would like to wish to Your Royal Highness very pleasant stay here in Prague and
            there will be much more opportunities to welcome you in our country again in the future.