Just 40 kilometres west of Budapest, the receding waters of Lake Velence tell a stark story of climate stress and human error. Metal steps that once led bathers to the shoreline now end in dry sand, and the water’s edge has retreated several metres away. By late May, the lake stood within 10 centimetres of its lowest recorded level, according to Pál Árpád Eötvös, mayor of the lakeside town of Gárdony. Experts quoted by local news site Daily News Hungary warn that threshold could be crossed as early as mid-June.
On 9 June, the water level at Agárd measured just 56 centimetres — a mere 3 centimetres above the historic low of 53 centimetres set in 2022, when an extreme drought gripped Hungary. With the hottest months still ahead, water levels can fall by 20 to 25 centimetres in a single month. Without substantial rainfall, the lake could drop by half a centimetre each day, reaching as low as 30 centimetres by summer’s end, researchers told Reuters.
A crisis decades in the making
The dire situation has arisen from a combination of prolonged droughts, insufficient rainfall, and decades of poor water management. Tibor Horanyi from the Association of Great Lakes points to the draining of wetlands for agriculture as a key factor. While historical records show that Lake Velence has dried up completely in the past, the alarming trend now is the increasing frequency of water shortages. The lake’s annual water loss — mostly through evaporation — now exceeds the inflow from precipitation.
Tourism businesses that depend on the lake are already feeling the pinch. Many operators offering pleasure boating or sailing excursions have not opened this season, and some boat owners have relocated to the larger Lake Balaton. The impact on wildlife is equally severe. Tóth Sándor, a civil engineer and president of the Fejér County Chamber of Engineers, explained in an article on the news site Telex’s G7 that the prolonged water shortage is degrading reed beds and shrinking habitats for waterfowl and fish. Nesting birds and their chicks are at risk as former breeding islands become dry land. Shallower water also warms more quickly, accelerating algae bloom growth and degrading water quality.
Can the lake be saved?
During previous extreme shortages, Lake Velence was replenished from external sources. In the early 1990s, water was channelled from the Rákhegy karst aquifer. That solution is no longer viable due to increased public drinking water needs and reduced reserves. Experts are now urging the renovation of the nearby Zámolyi and Pátkai reservoirs to capture more rainwater that can flow into the lake. This would involve removing sediment and restricting activities like fishing that degrade water quality.
Another proposal is to recycle treated wastewater from the region’s treatment plants. The facilities in Agárd and Csákvár produce 4.3 million and 0.3 million cubic metres of treated water per year, respectively, which currently leaves the watershed. A more ambitious suggestion is to transfer water from the Danube River, either through bank-filtered wells or direct surface extraction. Both options would require substantial new infrastructure, including pumping stations and tens of kilometres of pipelines. If raw water is extracted, pre-purification would be necessary to prevent hazardous substances, algae, or invasive species from entering Lake Velence.
“Only water replenishment can provide a solution to improve the current state of the lake,” Sándor writes, but “the implementation of the final versions requires a great deal of caution.”
The fate of Lake Velence is a microcosm of a broader European challenge: balancing human water needs with the preservation of natural ecosystems in an era of accelerating climate change. As Hungary’s third-largest lake continues to shrink, the clock is ticking for both its wildlife and the communities that depend on it.
