Hidrológiai Közlöny, 2016 (96. évfolyam)

2016 / 3. szám - HISTORICAL SNAPSHOT - Kerekes-Steindl Zsuzsanna: Water quality protection in Hungary - policy and status

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Hungarian Journal of Hydrology Vol. 96. No. 3. 2016.

are in moderate status while Balaton, Fertő and Velence lakes are good status.

In 2010-14 period 240 designated bathing sites were also assessed against the special bathing water quality requirements, taking into account the human health aspects (e.g. microbiology), as well. At 174 bathing sites the quality was good, and 56 % of the beaches was in excellent quality. In the investigated period only 6 cases were found where the water quality was non-acceptable and prevented the bathing.

The most important recreation area of Hungary is the Lake Balaton, which is today in good ecological and chemical quality, and its beaches are also in good or excellent quality. Perhaps one of the best examples for illustrating the success of water protection measures is the improvement of the lake’s water quality during the last decades. The nutrient and organic pollution reduction programs started decades ago covering the whole water- system of the lake. As a result of these programs, the eutrophication process was pushed back, the biological balance of the lake was stabilized. During the last years the late summer algae blooms, which were frequent in the 1990s, practically have not occurred, due to mostly the effect of wastewater collection and treatment program, which was extended to the whole Balaton catchment area. Some part of the collected wastewaters was led out from the basin. The rehabilitation program of the large wetland area of the Balaton watershed, the so called “Kis-Balaton (Small Balaton)”, and the establishment of the filtration systems at the mouth of inflowing creaks had significant effects on reducing nutrient and organic loads of the lake.

The quality of surface waters is negatively influenced from time to time by accidental water pollution cases (havaria), when during a short period time, an extreme amount of pollution far above the usual pollution load level reaches the water. Many times these events have foreign origin. One of the most memorable cases happened in the beginning of 2000, when from the Romanian part of the Tisza River Basin huge amount of mining origin sludge with high cyanide concentration had been spilled into the river causing severe damages in the ecological system of the river.

Groundwater

As a consequence of non-carefiil municipal and economical activities the pollution of shallow groundwater lying under most of the built-up areas prevent the use of shallow groundwater for drinking water purposes already in the 1920s. The nitrate pollution of the shallow groundwater layers was gradually increasing under most part of the agricultural cultivated areas, due to the intensification of the agricultural activities (e.g. spreading the animal farms with liquid manure, increasing use of fertilisers) in 1960-70s years. On more and more areas pollutions of soil and groundwater were discovered (e.g. surroundings of gas stations), and it became obvious, that the pollution of shallow groundwater endangered the deeper aquifers, as well.

In Hungary there are some water quality parameters, which have relatively high natural background level, and

the anthropogenic activities can increase them, as well. Quality problems of natural origin are due to dissolved iron, manganese, ammonium and arsenic concentrations higher than the standards particularly in porous aquifers. Karstic and bank-filtered water show fewer problems, though they are rather vulnerable.

Integrated status assessment including quantitative and chemical status of groundwater was carried out on the basis of WFD requirements in 2009 for RBMP1 and in 2015 for RBMP2. On the basis of the 2015 assessment out of 185 designated water bodies 53% of them was in “good”, 14 % was in „good but at risk” while 33% in “poor” status (Fig. 10).

Generally, the diffuse pollution (mainly higher nitrate concentration) is the main cause of the pollution of groundwater. Altogether 2338 water samples were taken and analysed in 2008-2013 to detect pesticide pollution, which covered 80 different pesticides. None of the sampled water bodies was qualified as poor or “good but at risk”. Even some improvements could have be detected, compared to previous reviews, but still the vulnerability of shallow groundwater is higher than the deeper aquifers.

Though some measured concentrations of the monitoring wells showed higher numbers to threshold values for pollutants originating from point sources (e.g. sulphate, chloride, metals, PAH, VOC), but the result of a more detailed assessment clarified that because of the scale and point-source character of pollution these do not represent significant problem.

Figure 10. Integrated status of groundwater (VGT2 2015)

The status of the protected areas of vulnerable drinking water resources was assessed with special attention, because the pollution of these water bodies can cause health problem. The test results of the production and the observation wells located within protected areas indicated that 20 groundwater bodies were in poor status. In general, the nitrate pollution with municipal and agricultural origin is the typical pollution type that can be detected in the observation wells.

The statistical trend-assessment showed that 15 groundwater bodies were in poor or „poor but at risk” status, because of the statistically significant increasing trends of some pollutants, mainly nitrate and ammonium. The intrusion tests were in connection with the assessments of significant quantitative and long term quality