Gyomaendrőd is the city of the Körös rivers: the Sebes-Körös, the Fekete-Körös and the Fehér-Körös rivers merge here, hence the name Hármas-Körös. The river has determined the life of the city since ancient times, and from time to time it has drastically transformed it.

The Körös rivers originate in the Erdélyi-Érchegység, Nagyvárad and Gyula are the two first cities they touch. The parts of the Great Plain were extremely meandering, which is why the river got the name "Körös", which means "körös-körül = round and round" in Hungarian. The river flows into the Tisza River, which flows into the Danube River and finally into the Black Sea.

In ancient times, the Limes Sarmatiae ditch system ran along the northern side of the Hármas-Körös River. Built by Constantine the Great, between 324-337 AD, due to the Roman-Sarmatians wars. Most of it was still visible on maps made in the late 1800s, and can still be found today.

People lived along the river in the Neolithic period (about 4000 BC), following a classic Great Plain lifestyle: gardening-type agriculture, animal husbandry, hunting and fishing. Special burial and defensive structures in the area are the Earth mounds (kurgan, burial mound, guard mound), which can be up to 10+ meters high. There are 40,000+ of them in the entire Great Plain, there are about 120 in Gyomaendrőd, about half of which still exist today.

The river has provided a livelihood for the local people for millennia. Due to its meandering nature, it has provided extremely rich fishing opportunities. It flooded vast areas with its alluvium several times a year, making vast areas fertile. The Carpathian Basin civilization also started along the rivers, as in many places in the world.

During the Turkish occupation, there was a dual administration: in addition to the Turkish military administration, the Hungarian tax system was also in force. This was an extraordinary burden on the population, which is why Gyomaendrőd (and many other river valley settlements) were depopulated around 1680-1690.

There were no extensive forests on the outskirts of Gyomaendrőd before. There was such a shortage of wood even before the resettlement (mid-1600s) that the residents wrote letters to the Sanjak of Gyula (Turkish administrative center, a Sanjak is approximately a county) to send wood, because they did not have enough wood for either firewood or building (a few dozen families lived here at the time).

In 1710, the Turkish army withdrew from the Great Plain, Hungary was liberated, and 17 of the former families returned to Gyomaendrőd. Among these new pioneers was the Kaszi Szabó (K. Szabó) family, which is one of the original branches of our family. The population grew rapidly when new families settled around 1740, mainly from the Hungarian Uplands (Slovakia), due to the Rákóczi War of Independence and the plague epidemics. The noble Porubcsánszki family also moved from the eponymous settlement of Poruba near Trenčín (Slovakia) at that time.

The river regulation was planned in 1848, but the technical construction was completed around 1890. Within a few years, the previously marshy region dried up, and huge areas became arable land and grasslands. This was the period of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy.

A new local governor was sent to Gyomaendrőd from Vienna, Baron Wodianer, who was entrusted with these new virgin lands. The region began to develop, and an unprecedented golden age was ushered in. The river became navigable, and high-quality coniferous timber arrived by ship from Transylvania to the region that had previously been extremely poor in wood. Sawmills of regional importance was established. The wood industry is still a significant industry in the life of Gyomaendrőd today.

After the world wars, significant national afforestation programs were launched. In Gyomaendrőd, less than 1% of the area was previously forested, which has now increased up to 4.3% (the national average is 21%). This region is still extremely poor in forests today. At that time, new forests were established, mainly with poplar and black-locust. The main tree species in the region is oak (English oak), with ash, elm, maple and walnut growing well alongside it.

Half of the forests have been privatized since 1990. There are many private farmers in the surrounding forests, as well as the state forestry, the national park and the water management organization. The river valley is a protected area between the flood protection embankments, with an extraordinary species richness.

The Hungarian section of the river system is bordered by 30 settlements, where a total of approx. 200,000 people live. Less than 150 years have passed since the major river regulation, and the biggest challenge has become the lack of water. In Romania, several large reservoir dams have been built on the Körös, which has made the annual water flow completely regulated. The flood waves have disappeared, the groundwater level has dropped. Today, we are at a point where it is no longer possible to establish a forest from a sapling/seedling if there is no separate irrigation. Agriculture is also struggling. Due to global climate change, there is hardly any rain in the summer, and the annual rainfall remains below 400 mm. Irrigation is the only way, but even that is becoming increasingly scarce.

We started developing innovative irrigation and soil conditioning solutions in our own forest 15 years ago. We develop drip irrigation, micro-furrow irrigation techniques, and cultivate agroforestry areas. We are working hard to ensure that future generations see forests in this region and that we don't end up back where we were 150 years ago.