1. Location

As far as water is concerned, the Czech Republic lies on the watershed of three seas - the North Sea, the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea. Its territory is source area of waters for the European rivers - Dunaj (Danube), Labe (Elbe) and Odra (Oder). The previous is reason why is the Czech Republic called "roof of the Europe".

What does it mean? Almost all the water in the Czechia comes from precipitation. No significant river flows into this territory from another state. On the contrary, rivers spring here and drain water outside the state border. This also results in a large water dependence of the Czech Republic on the amount of precipitation.


main European river basins

Fig. 1. Main European drainage basins (Source: https://www.eea.europa.eu).


 main river basins

Fig. 2. Three main drainage basins in the Czech Republic. The Elbe basin is the largest (63.3 % of the state territory), the second largest is Morava river basin (27.5 %, Morava is part of the Danube drainage basin) and the smallest Odra river basin (9.2 %) (Source: Ministry of the Agriculture of the Czech Republic, www.eagri.cz)




Task:

Repeat the concepts watershed, river basin, and drainage divide.

What consequences could have the recent climate change on the water supply and self-sufficiency of the Czech Republic?