Botár Imre - Károlyi Zsigmond: A Tisza szabályozása II. rész (1879-1944) (Vízügyi Történeti Füzetek 4. 1971)
Összefoglalás és a további perspektívák. A Tisza-völgy jelene és jövője - Idegennyelvű kivonatok
Series of Hydraulic Engineering History in Hungary No 3—4 THE REGULATION OF THE TISZA RIVER The regulation of the Tisza River is one of the prominent examples in the history of the Hungarian hydraulic engineering works and because of its dimensions and effects, it is also doubtless the most important chapter. One fourth of the country, or 2.3 million hectares are protected against floods, 3 / 4 parts of which belong to the Tisza Basin. While the expenses of the river training works in the river bed proper were borne by the state, the construction of the dikes in a length of round 2,700 km was accomplished by the autonomous associations of the interested parties — the "associations for flood control and land drainage". The dimensions of these works are considerable even on a world scale and occupy the first place on the European scale as to the area involved. A study, a "monography draft" has been published in two booklets. I. The introduction of Part I. of the volume entitled "The Regulation of the Tisza River from 1846 till 1879" paints a realistic picture about the ancient conditions of the Tisza River and Tisza Basin, about the effects inhibiting development in the marshland, about the hydrologicol regime of the Tisza and its long-lasting floods in pre-regulation periods. The permanently or periodically flooded areas, with a total extension of 20,000 sq.km are shown by two differently spaced hachures on the map on page 11. Although smaller regulation and flood control works of local interest were carried out from the seventeenth century on, it was only öfter the Turkish rule lasting for one and a half century and the wars of independence that the economic development of the country made it possible at the middle of the nineteenth century to start a general and systematic regulation of the Tisza: the preparation of a co-ordinated plan of the Tisza Basin control. The necessity for a uniform and systematic work involving the whoie Tisza Basin was recognized by István Széchenyi, a leading member of the economic and political life of those times and an indefatigable organizer of the technical and economic development of the country (p. 23). He had estblished the expedient organizational form for the works namely the uniform central Tisza Basin Association which closely collaborated with the central governmental administration for water management. The general plans — under his leadership — using the dat of the earlier proposals and those of the detailed Tisza survey carried out by Sámuel Lányi from 1833 till 1845, were elaborated by Pál Vásárhelyi (p. 2ó), an eminent civil engineer of those times, the leader of the Danube survey and a pioneer of the regulation works at the Lower-Danube (Iron-Gate). The regulation of the Tisza and the protection of its basin against floods were considered by Széchenyi as an organic part and even the basis of a general technical, economic and cultural development program for the
