Géza, the water guardian
With the onset of summer and the drought season, the last operation of the Water Guardians will carry the water to the saline steppe of Jászkarajenő. Géza, a horse breeder, came from Csemő to help return the water to the landscape from the nearby canal with his shovel and his strength. The Jászkarajenő saline steppe is located on the north-eastern border of the Sand Ridge, on the edge of an area that the UN FAO declared a semi-desert steppe and not recommended area for agriculture in 2004. Farmers living in the Sand Ridge area fear that the situation could get worse, which is why Géza joined the team.
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The Water Guardians
The Water Guardians
How to increase landscape resilience to drought on the Great Plain
2024
The Water Guardians team, led by ecologist András Németh, was formed from volunteers and operates as a civil community. Local farmers, livestock keepers, geologists, water experts and conservationists will come together for a common cause on the Sand Ridge (classified as a semi-desert zone by the UN FAO in 2004), with the aim of giving water back to the land and keeping the water in the landscape.
With simple tools such as a shovel, a bucket, manual strength and will, they build soil dams in the right place of a water canal to prevent the water from leaving the soil, the landscape, the country.
The historic drought of 2022 has painfully highlighted the need for a review of current water management. The effects of climate change are not only longer and longer periods of drought, but also the extraordinary amounts of rainfall that fall in short periods of time, which the current sewerage system effectively drains out of the country via the Danube and the Tisza. This surplus of water would be useful to compensate for the more arid periods. The combination of a lack of sustained winter snow cover and water wastage over the years has led to a situation in several locations in the Sand Ridge where the groundwater level has dropped to 11 meters and is continuing to fall. The impact of this is no longer only being felt in small-scale farming, but also in large-scale, industrial crop and livestock production, while food demand continues to grow locally and globally.
Increasing demands require ever greater water use, while the region's drying out appears to be ongoing and unstoppable.
The Water Guardians in action
The community currently has 133 members, of which about 10-15 are active for an event. Each action is preceded by planning and preparation, in consultation not only with the national park but also with the affected farmers, water and ecological experts who may be involved.
The Water Guardians with shovels and buckets raise soil dams at the 'Tetétlen' canal to divert the water towards the drying saline steppe and prevent the little water that has accumulated from leaving the landscape through the canal network, and leaving the country.
Keeping water in the landscape is also important because water infiltrating into the deeper layers of the soil also raises the ground-water. This is essential to prevent the region from drying out completely. The lack of winter snow cover, old water management practices and the effects of climate change all contribute to desiccation. There is an area in the Sandhills where the ground-water has now dropped to a depth of 11.5 meters (Jászszentlászló).
Áron, a local farmer at the canal
Áron has been struggling with drought for years, his fodder land is located on the banks of the canal and his fields border the saline steppe. He realized that the best solution was to give up production on part of his land in the short term and let it flood by water. This in turn is likely to improve the following year's yield.
The Water Guardians often have to seek permission from local farmers to intervene, there is often resistance and, for now, there are many more who will sacrifice the future for short-term profit.
Where is the dog buried?
This year, in the June flood alone, an estimated 10.4 cubic kilometers of water flowed down the Danube without being used. By storing this amount of water, it is estimated that the drinking water supply of Baja would be sufficient for 520 years and that of Budapest for 83 years. And if we were to base the country's entire water demand (population, industry, agriculture) on this, it will be enough for the next 12 years.
Ten million km3 of water (over roughly half the country's surface area) is lost during the vegetation period season, which is the "climatic water deficit" of the Great Plain during the summer half-year.
The correct use of this water could be to store it in the landscape, to integrate it into landscape functions and water cycles. This would require a change in the use of low-lying areas, i.e. the former floodplains, at least by adapting arable farming to the water cover and organizing the use of these areas.
Luca, the youngest water guardian, looks into the well of "future"
There is still some little water in the well next to the abandoned farm. Whether it stays that way depends on many things. The amount of rainfall and the summer heat could have an impact on this, as well as how much water has been successfully drained from the canal back into the landscape. If the water does not evaporate too quickly and is able to seep into the deeper layers of the soil, the situation could improve.
The people who used to live here on the farms, lived with the landscape, taking it into account and adapting to it by farming in a mosaic arrangement that left space for water to flow in so that the land did not dry out. Industrial agriculture, on the other hand, has shaped the landscape to its own needs, and the fauna and water have disappeared along with the farm life.
Dead plant in the canal
Local actions like this can trigger small and useful but very fragile changes in small areas. But a comprehensive plan is needed to save the region as a whole from desertification, or at least to mitigate its negative effects while at the same time combining the positive impacts.
The fact that there is water in the canal and that green sedge is growing on the banks of the Jászkarajenő steppe does not mean that the same is true a few kilometers away. The 150-hectare lake in nearby 'Kocsér' and 'Nagykőrös' was drained in the 1960s and its impermeable layer blasted with dynamite to create arable land, causing irreparable damage. Through the damaged impermeable layer, we continuously lose part of our dwindling and valuable water resources.
András, the water guardian, take a break after digging
András works as a project manager, coming from Budapest to help guarding water. After hours of digging, he will sleep standing. He protects his head from the strong sun by wrapping his head in a T-shirt, but after a rest he calculates: in the Great Plain, roughly 100,000 dams/water retention structures would have to be built or rebuilt every year. If about 10 people can build an average of 3 water retention soil dams a day without earthmoving equipment, then roughly 10 people would build 500 dams in a year. If they are working full time, then roughly estimated 2000 skilled workers and roughly 200 environmental engineers / horticultural engineers / biologists are needed. For Hungary as a whole, this number would be a maximum of 3000 skilled workers and 300 specialists, a small team would be enough in every 8th village. These numbers can be radically reduced if smaller earthmoving machines are available, or if dams can be built that require less maintenance.
Looking for creatures in the water
The water guardians built earth dams also at two canals to divert the water from the canal towards the steppe. The water in the saline steppe may, in a wetter winter, give breeding amphibians and birds a chance in the spring.
The canal of ‘Tetétleni’
By mid-summer, the wetland is slowly drying up.
Yet living creatures has in the water
Wetlands associated with saline steppe do not have a permanent water cover and would generally need to be submerged from early spring to mid-summer to provide habitat for wetland-associated creatures. The conservation of wetlands is not only important for breeding birds, but also for the succession of other species such as spotted and crested newts. Because of the water in the canal, larvae of spotted and crested newts are now present, but unfortunately the birds were absent. The Jászkarajenő steppe is a poorly known saline steppe, which has got worse and worse conditions in recent years due to changing climatic conditions and past human interventions. It has been designated as a Natura 2000 site for its conservation value.
Lonely Water Guardian, after work
Another summer is approaching and the number and length of drought periods by the forecast to increase year on year.
The extent to which such isolated actions will have any chance of having a beneficial impact in the longer term, even at local level, is uncertain.
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