Beneath the historic and modern streets of Prague lies a vast network of sewers that constantly carries off wastewater from all the city’s toilets, bathrooms, kitchens and factories. It also has the important job of draining off rainwater, so the streets are kept free of water when a downpour comes. After running into combined sewers through gullies in the road, the rain mixes with sewage and they flow on together to one of the wastewater treatment plants.
This sophisticated sewer system, which has been steadily developed over the past 120 years, plays a crucial and indispensable role in keeping the urban environment clean and sanitary, and thus protecting public health and the environment.
Prague’s sewer system – which is actually an extensive complex of different structures – is located both below the ground and above it. It consists of nearly 4,000 km of sewers (which could stretch in a straight line from the very north of Europe to its southernmost tip), plus over a thousand sewer connections, 349 wastewater pumping stations and 22 wastewater treatment plants. The Central Wastewater Treatment Plant on Císařský Island in Prague 6, which treats 92% of the city’s wastewater each year, is aided in its task by another 22 branch treatment plants, serving the outskirts that can’t be connected to the central sewerage system.
The story of Prague’s sewers goes back much further than the modern history of the city. Archaeologists find evidence of sewer systems in even the earliest urban civilizations across the globe, and it’s clear that medieval Prague’s efforts to improve its sanitary conditions were inspired by our predecessors in antiquity. Although the first sewers – such as those at the Strahov Monastery or in modern-day Neruda Street, which date back to the 12th century – were less than perfect because of their insufficient gradient and flat bottom, they still represented an important step towards modern wastewater drainage and treatment.
A 17th-century stone system built at the Clementinum, and later attempts at a comprehensive underground system in the 18th century, are further evidence of Prague’s ongoing efforts to construct an efficient and reliable wastewater system.
Despite their technical shortcomings, these pioneering projects paved the way towards the sophisticated water management processes we use today.
... after an intensive treatment process, wastewater is returned to nature?
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