Bihari Kissárrét Program

Environmental Impact: Through the planned interventions, hundreds of thousands of cubic meters of rainwater can be retained locally every year, directly improving the microclimate and groundwater levels of the micro-region.

Kötegyán and the cooperating settlements—Sarkad, Körösnagyharsány, Biharugra, Geszt, Mezőgyán, Sarkadkeresztúr, Méhkerék, Újszalonta, Salonta (RO), Cefa (RO), and Sânnicolau Român (RO)—are located in the Kis-Sárrét micro-region and its southern border area. The area is densely covered with canals and once-active watercourses, stretching from the Crișul Repede to the Crișul Negru. The Crișul Repede arriving from the Apuseni Mountains and several smaller streams—primarily the Korhány, Köles-ér, and Gyepes-ér—formed through their floods the vast aquatic ecosystem stretching from Körösnagyharsány to Vésztő, known as Kis-Sárrét. As a result of 19th-century river regulation and drainage works, the habitat of floodplain communities drastically shrank and largely disappeared. However, the problem was further exacerbated by a flawed human intervention, after which climate change impacts—specifically drying—also set in. Following the critical flood on the Criș rivers in 1970, interceptor canals running parallel to the state border were built in Romania, isolating this area from the water replenishment provided by the mountainous catchment area. Consequently, the Interceptor and Anti canals built on Romanian territory collect waters flowing from the East and direct them straight into the Crișul Negru, bypassing the main Gyepes canal and other previously active watercourses.  

This interceptor canal thus cut through and drained watercourses that previously carried significant water traffic and primarily fed the Crișul Repede. These former watercourses are Gyepes-ér, Toprongyos, Pósa-ér, Kopolya-ér, and Korhány-Köles-ér. Or, as it is more justified to name them today: Holt-Gyepes, Holt-Korhány, etc. 

 In recent decades, water reached the channels at least in spring after snowmelt or following rainy periods, but due to droughts in recent years, even these have ceased. As a consequence, plant communities and wildlife developed over millennia could permanently disappear from these wetland habitats.

In the settlements of the micro-region, we observe that precipitation amounts are decreasing, becoming rarer and more unpredictable. At the same time, intense rainfall events are more frequent compared to the past, but the water does not seep into the soil, thus failing to improve the local water balance. Periods of excess surface water (inland flooding) are also increasingly rare and brief. Having more water is preferable to less. The beds of watercourses that previously had significant flow (Gyepes-ér, Korhány, etc.) are dry for most of the year. The channels are overgrown with aquatic vegetation, and higher vertebrates (fish, otters) have disappeared from these watercourses. Naturally, water has vanished not only from the channels; groundwater levels have also dropped, which can be observed in dug wells. To summarize: the problem started with river regulations and drainage works, followed by improper land use linked to large-scale agricultural production, then the land-drying effect of the Interceptor Canal built in the 1970s, and on top of all this—amplifying these effects—came climate change, especially in the last 10–20 years. This has led to the aridification of the region. The drying trend was already noticeable, but with reduced rainfall and the cessation of surface flooding, it intensified further. And the year 2022 brought an unprecedented drought.