Károlyi Zsigmond - Nemes Gerzson: Szolnok és a Közép-Tiszavidék vízügyi múltja III. rész, A vízgazdálkodás eredményei 1945-1975-ig. (Vízügyi Történeti Füzetek 10. Budapest, 1976)

6. Összefoglalás (Tanulságok és feladatok)

season. Up to the second half of the 19th century, this region of the country was the most abundant in lakes, pools and brooklets connecting them, where fishing and fish pond culture flourished since the 11th century (the age of the Árpádhouse). The famous nomadic cattle breeding in the region, first of all in the plains on the left-hand side (Great Cumania and the ajoinig Hortobágy) was based on the irrigation of pastures and meadows by the annual floods, as demonstrated long ago by the ethnographic studies of István Györffy. it is also due to the conditions described that willow, poplar, further reed and rush, etc. have become the principal raw materials for popular architecture and handicraft. In addition, waters also played an important role in other regards in the economy of the region: in ancient marsh fishing and poultry breeding in the settlements around the flood plains, just as in ancient hemp and flax farming, as well as in the famous tobacco farming of Heves which spread in the 18th century, or in the vineyards and orchards known already in the Middle Ages. (Namely, these were planted on the slopes around the flood plains, displacing the ancient galerry-forests in order to make use of the humid micro-climate and of the irrigation possibilities for tobacco farming.) Even in this region so abounding in waters, ponds and lakes were most numerous — besides the Sárrét in the Körös-Berettyó area — in the Heves basin on the northern, and in the Alpár basin on the southern margin of the region, where a series of fish ponds surrounded by meadows, pastures and gallery-forests, used since the age of the Árpáds abutted on one another. In present water management planning efforts are made essentially to make use of these natural conditions — once utilized by autochtonous agriculture but later forgotten for a timeoffering unmatched possibilities even in our days: through the storage of water by means of the Tisza barrages (Kisköre and Csongrád), as well as by the socalled flood retention reservoirs moderating the flood peaks in the Körös River system. In like manner, the example shown by nature and its ancient utilization is followed by the network of the (Cumanian and Jazygian) main irrigation canals and the adjacent irrigation schemes on the right- and left-hand banks. (Of course, this is performed at a higher level in accordance with the possibilities and the technological standards of our days, and moreover, by multiplying the old possibilities of economic utilization and by bringing the old means and methods to perfection (Vol. 3, Fig. 50.). Part II. — The age of systematical regulation (1846—1944) During the 100 years indicated in this title, water regulation has played a decisive role in laying the foundations of economic development and in opening the way for capitalisttype commodity production. Obviously, owing to the conditions of the region described earlier, the solution of the various regulation and reclamation tasks called for a considerably larger amount of work than elsewhere. This is illustrated by the fact that the numerous cuts carried out in the whole Tisza Valley in order to accelerate the passage of floods have shortened the course of the river by 37 per cent on the average whereas, in this area considered, even by 42.7 per cent. The flood control and land drainage activities of the water associations organized by local interests have extended to more than 50 per cent of the area: 360,000 hectares of flood plains were reclaimed and made arable the construction of by 612 km of flood levees. An especially immense and rather lengthy work has carried out to correct as far as possible the trace of the levees following themeanderingriver and to develop a relatively regular flood bed. The last major section of the flood plain at Fegyvernek incorporated into the control system as late as 1925 only. Still, the widest flood bed in the whoie Tisza Valley is in the region, in the Heves basin and is utilized presently as the Kisköre Reservoir (vol. 3, Fig. 53.). Likewise, low-water regulation serving the interests of navigation was needed primarily in the Central Tisza region. The extent of land drainage which as commenced chiefly in the 1870's also by water associations is characterized by the canal network of 3.133 km length and by a large number of pumping stations draining 260,000 hectares. For some associations the area of the flood plain controlled was the same or almost the same as reclaimed by drainage. The first drainage pumping station in the Tisza Valley was built in this region in 1879 (Vol. 2, Fig. 26).