Prime Minister Péter Magyar announced a water emergency, in a dramatic video showed how serious the situation in the country is. According to the announcement, a heat warning will remain in effect until midnight on Wednesday (July 1), since there is no precipitation in the country at all, and the temperature is high. According to the Prime Minister, water supply is the most critical of the emerging problems, which is why restrictions have had to be introduced in 120 settlements so far. mainly around Budapest.
György Palkó, CEO of the Capital Sewerage Works (FCSM), helped Telex navigate the questions of why the heat causes such a problem in the water supply, either in the short or long term.
The effects of the heat wave
In Hungary, the weather conditions have changed a lot, the average temperature has risen significantly, while the annual rainfall has often dropped to only 60 percent of the level of previous years, and part of the water volume often appears in the form of short-term flash floods. Drought causes the soil to move and break, which causes increased failure of water pipes.
Due to the effects of global warming, increased vehicle traffic and outdated pipe systems, the number of broken pipes and hidden leaks has increased. This leads to network loss ie
the amount of water flowing out of the network accounts for about 22-25 percent of the amount of water supplied nationally.
Due to outdated mechanical equipment, the amount of water extracted from the water base decreases, and due to the unstable state of the networks, periodic water shortages may occur in hot summer periods, when there are additional water demands compared to the average (home pools, jacuzzis).
In the new settlements, mainly near big cities, the increase in the number of the population required significant infrastructure development, moreover, industrial parks and logistics centers are being established in areas close to the capital, but still affordable, because the proximity to the capital is attractive to them. It is no coincidence that the biggest problem always occurs in agglomerations.
For this reason, a significant technical renewal and reconstruction of the works would be essential, including the modernization of pumping stations, the establishment of new wells and the replacement of asbestos cement pipes. The combination of aging pipe networks, increased environmental and mechanical loads, and outdated technological systems urgently necessitates the systemic renewal of the domestic water utility network. Procrastination not only endangers our water resources, but also imposes an unacceptable burden on operators and society from a sustainability and economic point of view.
A little history
Let’s now focus a little on Budapest and the past! The total length of the Budapest sewer network, including access lines, is 6,500 kilometers, to which 164,000 manholes, works of art, and nearly 97,000 sinkholes are connected. The sewer system is largely operated by gravity, the flow in the pipes is free-surface, and the pipe section is saturated only in rainy weather or during extraordinary events.
The construction works of the main pressure pipe stretching from the Main Plant of the Capital Waterworks in Káposztámegyer to Fővám tér, in 1973, in front of the Parliament – Photo: Főfoto / Fortepan
This huge system began to take shape in the second half of the 1800s, and in terms of construction, three distinct eras can be distinguished.
- The first period starts from the second half of the 19th century, when stone and brick were the main building materials. The main collectors still in operation today are mainly located under the historic downtown (Pest and Buda) and in the vicinity of the quays.
- The second era extends from the Second World War to the 1980s and 1990s, when prefabricated pipes appeared, and concrete became the dominant construction material. This era was primarily characterized by quantity and not quality.
- The third era – from the 80s and 90s to the present day – was already characterized by the appearance of more modern pipe materials. The dominant pipe material is KG-PVC, which can be easily recognized by its orange color, and glass fiber-reinforced polyester became decisive in the case of larger section sizes.
With the construction of sewer and drinking water networks, almost 95-96 percent of the population was supplied with drinking water and the water needs of industry were also taken care of. During the large constructions, the necessary electrical and mechanical equipment was implemented at the standard of the time, usually from equipment and parts made by socialist countries.
Unfortunately, there are many outdated materials, such as asbestos cement or early plastic, steel and cast iron pipes. As time progresses, these pose serious risks. Water consumption in Budapest fell to around 40-50 percent of the peak consumption in the 1980s, but almost minimal resources were available to maintain and renew the existing works.
As a result, the population is now served by a depreciated water supply system. It is also a tangible problem that our environment has changed significantly since the 1980s, the increase in traffic and the dynamic load of traffic over the lines cause additional sources of error.
Demography, settlements, direction
Péter Magyar now also asked that the use of water be limited to the most necessary, for drinking, cooking, washing, but not to fill swimming pools or wash cars. All of this is completely legitimate, but here it is worth discussing the geographical changes in demand in addition to the needs.
One of the peculiarities of Hungary is that, while the population is rapidly decreasing, in certain places the needs are increasing very suddenly. The population peaked at around 10.7 million people in 1980, at that time the population of Érd and its surroundings (seven settlements) was 66 thousand people. In 2025, on the other hand, the population of the country has decreased to around 9.5 million, while the population of the mentioned settlements around Érd has approached 115 thousand.
According to György Palkó, the capital agglomeration is a neighborhood with family houses. The latter condition also affects consumption habits.
The proportion of properties with swimming pools and jacuzzis has increased sharply, and the demand for irrigation is significant. Short but very intense consumption peaks also occur during heat waves.
Due to the conditions, the most important risk for such a regional water supply system is not the annual average water demand, but the summer peak demand. In the past, the system served the needs during an average period, however, on increasingly frequent hot and dry days, the historical average can no longer be interpreted, the reservoir, water transfer and pressure increase are at the limit at the same time.
A man buys drinking water from a tanker truck on June 30, 2022, in Solymár, where there was a water shortage due to the heat and increased consumption needs – Photo: István Huszti / Telex
And here we come to the biggest sector problem, the financing difficulties, the lack of resources. In the past period, the regulation made the sustainability and development of water utilities very difficult, primarily because of the overheads after 2012, i.e. the freezing of fees, which was followed by a 10 percent reduction in fees for residential consumers. Then came the utility pipe tax and the income tax of energy suppliers (Robin Hood tax), which also covers water utilities until 2025, the rate of which increased from 11 percent in 2013 to 41 percent in the meantime. In such an environment, it can be said that the operators of the water utility systems do not have enough resources even for improvements equal to the amortization.
Climate change
And then one more time about the heat wave! Rainfall events of extreme intensity overload the canals to an extreme extent, causing them to operate under pressure more and more often. On average, the network can only handle 2-year return rains without disturbance (this means that it is prepared for those heavy rains that previously occurred approximately every 2 years). At higher loads, spills in the network and, which is particularly harmful, significant overpressures develop. The channels, especially those with a brick structure, bear the internal pressure poorly, they were not designed for this.
The so-called two-year return probability rainfall intensity, once used for the sizing of canals, is a thing of the past, these two-year frequency rains can now occur several times a week. In addition, precipitations that, according to previous statistics, occur once every 50-100 years are also more frequent. Think of the lightning-like precipitation that fell on August 17, 2015! At that time, 110–130 mm of precipitation fell in the city center in a single hour, and 14 million cubic meters of precipitation fell on the city in 4 hours.
The situation was saved by the fact that, due to the low water level of the Danube, it was possible to drain the stormwater from the sewer network by gravity. The rainwater poured into the Danube with such force that it caused serious damage to the spillways. For example, the Ördög ditch spillway has turned into a water cannon with a diameter of 5 meters.
In the Budapest network, FCSM registers more than 1,300 kilometers of canals older than 50 years. Of these, 650-700 kilometers are pipe sections that definitely need reconstruction, and at least 50-80 kilometers should be reconstructed immediately.
Renovating the pipe network in Budapest is extremely resource-intensive. Due to the great depth, the solution of temporary traffic technology during the construction, the difficulties of creating the parade and work area, the sometimes necessary special underground construction and non-excavation technologies, the cost of the reconstruction can reach HUF 3-5 million (!) per 1 meter. Consequently, if
With 80 kilometers of absolutely necessary work and an average cost of HUF 1.5 million per meter, we would need 120 billion immediately to correct the most threatening errors.
In the same way, it is necessary to take care of the renovation of network transfer stations. Around 250 lifts operate in the capital. The amortization of mechanical equipment is faster than that of pipelines, and in their case, too, an increased rate of renovation would be required.
According to György Palkó, we are in 2026, in the last hour, here we wrote mainly about the drinking water supply, but it would be worth talking separately about the issue of flood protection and waste water drainage, because there are pressing problems there as well.
