Tomáš Řeha works for the state enterprise Lesy České republiky as Deputy Head of Stream Management for the Odra River Basin area. With over 20 years of experience in water management, he has held nearly all operational positions within the unit responsible for managing small watercourses in the Moravian-Silesian Region and parts of the Olomouc Region.
In his work, he sees water not only as a life-giving element but also as an unpredictable force that occasionally reveals weaknesses in landscape management – most recently during the floods of September 2024. Stream managers are tasked with maintaining a delicate balance between protecting nearby communities and ensuring safe water flow through riverbeds. Increasingly, he also addresses the opposite extreme – prolonged drought. To respond to this, the enterprise launched the “Returning Water to the Forest” program, which aims to implement systemic landscape measures to retain water more effectively and improve regional water balance.