20 June 2012 Aquaculture in the Czech Republic in 2012: A prosperous and modern European sector based on a thousandyear history of pond culture Zdeněk Adámek, Otomar Linhart, Michal Kratochvíl, Martin Flajšhans, Tomáš Randák, Tomáš Policar, Pavel Kozák The Czech Republic is a small (78,867 km2), land-locked country with 10.5 million people in Central Europe (Figure 1) and the capital, Prague, with 1.2 million people. The country is situated at the upper watershed for three seas: the North Sea (the Elbe River - 370 km with Vltava River – 433 km), the Black Sea (the Morava River – 246 km with Dyje River – 306 km as a tributary of the Danube River) and the Baltic Sea (the Odra River – 135 km with the Opava River – 131 km). Natural lakes are represented by several small water bodies, located at high altitude, without any major fisheries. Now, 118 dam reservoirs (artificial lakes) have been built with a total water area of 14,200 ha (3.517 million m³). Commercial fisheries do not, de facto, exist for legal reasons. Thus, the fisheries sector in the Czech Republic is represented by two domains – recreational fisheries (angling) and freshwater aquaculture. The majority of aquaculture production is from ponds that range in size from <1 to 489 ha and which collectively cover an area of 52,000 ha. Ponds are an inseparable part of the Czech countryside (Figure 2). The History of a Unique Czech Fish Pond Aquaculture In the 11th century, the first carp ponds were built in the present-day territory of the Czech Republic. Three centuries later, the Golden Age of carp farming became an economic force in the late middle ages. In the 14th century, 75,000 ha of ponds existed and produced about 30 kg of fish per ha. A real boom in pond construction took place at the end of 15th and the beginning of the 16th century when about 25,000 new ponds were built using very simple tools (Figure 3). By the end of 16th century, about 180,000 ha of ponds already existed in the territory of the Czech Republic, yielding approximately 40 kg of fish per ha. In addition to the large growth in pond numbers, the methods employed in carp culture were greatly improved during the Golden Age of Czech pond farming. The carp culture process established during the Golden Age does not differ too much from current practices. Ponds were divided into three groups: 1) spawning and fingerling Fig. 1. Location of the Czech Republic in Europe and the European Union. Fig. 2. Fishponds are an important component of Czech landscape and nature. The pond system Naděj near Třeboň. (Photo by Jan Ševčík.)
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