Water protection; 1 : 500 000

Protection of surface and underground waters is ensured in the framework of legislation of the Slovak Republic in the following manner: (1) Protected water supply areas (CHVO) - due to their natural conditions these are important areas of natural accumulation of water by the Act of the FA CSSR No. 138/1977 of Coll. on waters (Water Act). From the point of view of water resource protection, as well as their areas 10 CHVO have been identified with total area of 6,942 km2 i.e. 14.16 % of the total area of the SR with utilisable amount of surface and underground waters equalling 39.96 m3.s-1. The proposed CHVO include the Zapadne Tatry Mts. with the eastern part of the Chocske vrchy Mts., Zahorska nizina Lowland with the contiguous slopes of the Little Carpathians and Medzibrozie in the south-eastern part of the Vychodoslovenska nizina Lowland. (2) Hygienic protection zones (PHO) of the exploited surface and underground water sources - they are identified with the purpose of protecting the yield, quality and hygienic security (the Act of the FA CSSR No. 138/1977 of Coll.). The used surface and underground water sources are under three and two levels of protection respectively. There are 1,138 PHO sources of underground waters in Slovakia, while in one PHO (above all in the PHO of the second level) more water sources can be included, however only with one PHO of the second level. PHP of surface water covers 71 in the territory of the SR, out of which 8 concern the water reservoirs and 62 PHO is destined to direct consumption. The areas of the PHOs of underground and surface waters represents 356,280 ha and 505,139 ha respectively. (3) Drinking water supply streams and their catchments - the waterworks streams are the sections of water streams determined as water sources for public supply, the basin of waterworks stream is the territory, from which the surface waters naturally flows into the waterworks stream, as well as the territory, from which the surface water is artificially conducted into the basin of the waterworks stream in order to increase its capacity (Decree of the Ministry of Agriculture of the SR No. 56/2001 of Coll., which amends the Decree of the Ministry of Forestry and Water Economy of the SSR No. 10/1977 of Coll., which identifies the water work streams and their basins and contains the list of the important water streams). This decree rearranged the original number of 58 basins of waterworks streams to 103. (4) Streams important for water management - they are the water streams or their sections established for diverse purposes (Decree of the Ministry of Agriculture of the SR No. 56/2001 of Coll.) with total of 691 water streams important for water economy. (5) Protective zones (OP) of the natural medicinal sources and natural mineral table water sources - they are the territories with determined measures and conditions aimed at conservation of their qualitative and quantitative properties. The OPs are identified as a rule in three degrees on the basis of expert hydrogeological research. The OP of the first degree protects the spring area; the OP of the second degree protects the accumulation area, and the OP of the third degree protects the infiltration area of hydrogeological structure. The OP of higher degree can include several natural therapeutic sources or natural mineral water source or natural therapeutic sources and natural mineral waters together. In the Slovak republic 37 OPs of natural therapeutic and natural mineral waters have been designated. (authors)