River basin management, Bulgarian case study

Abstract

The master plans for the management of river basins have been elaborated. The territory of Bulgaria is divided into four main hydrological zones – Danube, Black Sea, East and West Mediterranean hydrological zones. The rivers from Danube zone discharged directly to the Danube river, the North boundary of the country. All rivers from the eastern part of Bulgaria discharged directly to the Black Sea. The rivers from East and West Mediterranean hydrological zones discharged to Mediterranean Sea after flowing trough Greece and/or Turkey. The main river basins in Bulgaria were subjects to the evaluation of master plans.During the elaboration of the master plans the following elements have been investigated:•Demographical characteristics of the stakeholders in the river basin.•Economical overview of the stakeholders.•Estimation of surface water availabilities and resources; Water quantity.•Groundwater overview and estimation of available groundwater resources.•Water quality of surface and ground water; sediment load.•Estimation of water use for domestic, irrational, agricultural and industrial water supply.•Ecosystems in the river basin; Tundja river basin ecosystems.•Master Plans elaboration for 2010.•Water balance calculations for 1998 and 2010.The aim of this paper is to present an overview of Tundja river basin management. Tundja is one of the biggest tributaries of Mariza river and it is join it in the territory of Turkey. The basin belongs to the East Mediterranean hydrological zone. The hydrological investigations and estimations of natural river flow along the main river body and it’s tributaries will be discussed in details. The calculations concern 1961–2004 study period. Long-term assessment has been performed. The characteristics of the monthly, annual, minimum and maximum river discharges have been obtained.