Drying Up: The Human Cost of Hungary's Water Mismanagement Decades of poor water retention practices have left Hungary woefully unprepared for droughts and heatwaves brought on by climate change.
Record low water levels at Lake Velence paint a stark picture of the country's worsening water crisis. For generations, Hungary has prioritized draining its land over allowing natural flooding cycles to occur.
Water from fields, wetlands, and soil was channeled away to make room for agriculture and other enterprises.