As a metropolis with a thousand-year history, Prague can take pride not only in its much admired architecture and wealth of culture, but also in the high quality of its drinking water. Its residents don’t think twice about it, and often have no idea where their water comes from and what paths it has travelled to reach to them.
There are three sources of drinking water for the capital – the Vltava, Jizera and Želivka rivers. Water from the Vltava is made drinkable by the Podolí Waterworks. This accounts for about 12% of the entire system’s supply. About twice as much drinking water, roughly 25%, is supplied to Prague by the water treatment plant in Káraný, a small village to the east of Prague, which processes water from the Jizera River and a few local artesian wells. But by far the biggest source for Prague’s drinking water supply is the Švihov Reservoir on the Želivka River. Water from the treatment plant there accounts for the largest portion of the system’s supply, approximately 63% of it.
Thanks to the combination of those three sources, Prague boasts drinking water that not only meets the strictest public health standards, but also has an excellent taste. In fact, our capital is one of the cities with the highest quality drinking water in Europe.
Prague’s water supply system consists of nearly 4,500 kilometres of pipes and 120,000 service connections. This extensive water supply system also includes water management structures, such as reservoirs, pumping stations or the water tower at Děvín, which is used to balance out the pressure in the pipes. Drinking water is supplied to more than 95,000 customers – i.e. companies, institutions, family houses and apartment buildings – who consume about 90 million m3 of it every year.
In Prague, the idea of transporting water to places where it was lacking can be traced back to the 12th century. At that time, water was carried in pipes made of wood, stone, ceramics or lead, or simply in open channels, and these were always gravitational constructions, i.e. the water flowed by its own weight. Prague’s first water supply systems include the wooden Michle water system used for Vyšehrad Castle in the 12th century, the Strahov Monastery system from the mid-12th century, which used the springs on Petřín Hill, and the lead-piped Zbraslav water system from the mid‑14th century.
When local springs and wells were no longer enough for the needs of Prague Castle, a new solution for water supply was sought. This resulted in the construction of a collecting tank in the mid-14th century, which accumulated water from the tiny springs that bubble up in the surrounding hills. From this tank, wooden pipes led the water to a drinking fountain at the Old Royal Palace. During the reign of King Rudolf II, the castle was even supplied from ponds near the villages of Chýně and Hostivice, with the water being carried by pipes made of wood and fired clay. This arrangement lasted all the way through to the 1920s, but today Prague Castle is connected to the normal water supply network.
... Prague’s highest water reservoir is at Kopanina (393 m above sea level) and its lowest is the one built directly within the water treatment plant at Podolí (195 m above sea level)?
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