Michal Kravčík: Slovakia is drying up

Slovak environmentalist Michal Kravčík recently presented his "New Theory of Global Warming" at an environmental conference in Vancouver, British Columbia. His theory states that due to shifts in the earth's weather patterns and excessive industrial and urban development over the past 50 years, Slovakia, along with the rest of the world, is steadily losing its water supply."The industrialisation and urbanisation of Slovakia was begun after the end of World War II," Kravčík said. "Ecologically stabilising elements - such as bogs, spread-out green areas and groves of trees - were removed from the country's environmental structure. More than 500,000 hectares of agricultural land has since then been drained and more than 8,000 kilometres of [natural] watercourses have been canalised."As the country's natural surface has been gradually covered over with concrete, a process accelerated during Communism from 1948 to 1989, less water is able to penetrate the soil and join natural underground water reserves. Instead, water is increasingly falling on cement urban centres and in the more than 15,000 kilometres of concrete "water-catching drains" that have been constructed since 1950. The water then drains into rivers, where it is taken out of Slovakia and ultimately to the oceans.