Mountain Territories Research Articles

IODINE NUTRITION IN THE REPUBLIC OF ARTSAKH (NAGORNO KARABAKH)

Iodine is a required nutrient for thyroid function. The mountainous terrain in the Republic of Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh) in the south Caucasus suggests that it is likely to be endogenously deficient in iodine. The region is heavily dependent on neighboring Armenia for food imports including iodized salt. Since 2005, iodine is a government-sanctioned compulsory supplemental ingredient in salt in Armenia. However, there has never been a study of iodine nutrition in Artsakh. We sought to determine the level of iodine nutrition in Artsakh and the iodine content of table salt in the region. Using a cross-sectional modified cluster model, we measured urine and salt iodine concentrations from a representative sample of children living in Artsakh. From 30 schools throughout the territory, we obtained 772 urine samples from children aged 8 to 10, and 323 samples of table salt. Repeat urine samples from 18.6% of participants were obtained. The median adjusted urinary iodine content was 203 μg/L (mean 206 μg/L, 95% confidence interval 202-210), within the range indicating sufficient iodine nutrition. There were small but statistically significant differences between the 8 administrative regions; however, there were no differences between individual sites. We found that 97.2% of table salt samples tested had iodine concentrations within the standard of 25 to 55 mg/kg. Among school-age children in Artsakh, iodine nutrition is adequate, and the salt is appropriately iodized. These results illustrate the remarkable success of the Armenian salt iodization program in providing sufficient but not excessive iodine to the mountainous territory of Artsakh. Abbreviation: UIC = urinary iodine concentration.

Improving energy sustainability for public buildings in Italian mountain communities

The objective of this work is to analyze and then optimize thermal energy consumptions of public buildings located within the mountain community of Lanzo, Ceronda and Casternone Valleys. Some measures have been proposed to reduce energy consumption and consequently the economic cost for energy production, as well as the harmful GHG emissions in the atmosphere.Initially, a study of the mountain territory has been carried out, because of its vast extension and climatic differences. Defined the communities and the buildings under investigation, energy dependant data were collected for the analysis of energy consumption monitoring: consumption data of three heating seasons, geometric buildings characteristics, type of opaque and transparent envelope, heating systems information with boiler performance and climatic data.Afterward, five buildings with critical energy performances were selected; for each of these buildings, different retrofit interventions have been hypothesized to reduce the energy consumption, with thermal insulation of vertical or horizontal structures, new windows or boiler substitution. The cost-optimal technique was used to choose the interventions that offered higher energy performance at lower costs; then a retrofit scenario has been planned with a specific financial investment.Finally, results showed possible future developments and scenarios related to buildings energy efficiency with regard to the topic of biomass exploitation and its local availability in this area. In this context, the biomass energy resource could to create a virtuous environmental, economic and social process, favouring also local development.

Sustainable Development of the Mountain Territory of the Ukrainian Carpathians: Foreign Experience and Domestic Realities

The article describes the factors and indicators of sustainable development of mountain areas. The authors analyse the experience of foreign countries in the educational and socio-cultural activities of the inhabitants of the mountains, determine the prospects for its implementation in the mountainous regions of the Ukrainian Carpathians. The researches determine the ways and prospects of development of mountain territories of the Ukrainian Carpathians compare foreign experience of some European countries and the United States on sustainable development.
 The purpose of the article is based on studying the experience of mountainous countries, identifying the leading factors influencing their sustainable development and revealing the prospects for their implementation in the mountainous regions of the Ukrainian Carpathians. In accordance with the purpose of the study, features of mountain areas were outlined, the factors that determine the specifics of their educational, ecological, economic and socio-cultural development are described. The authors analysed international experience of managing the development of mountain areas in order to determine the possibilities of its use in national practice

Water balance and hydrology research in a mountainous permafrost watershed in upland streams of the Kolyma River, Russia: a database from the Kolyma Water-Balance Station, 1948–1997

Abstract. In 2018, 70 years have passed since the beginning of observations at the Kolyma Water-Balance Station (KWBS), a unique scientific research hydrological and permafrost catchment. The volume and duration (50 continuous years) of hydrometeorological standard and experimental data, characterizing the natural conditions and processes occurring in mountainous permafrost conditions, significantly exceed any counterparts elsewhere in the world. The data are representative of mountainous territory of the North-East of Russia. In 1997, the station was terminated, thereby leaving Russia without operating research watersheds in the permafrost zone. This paper describes the dataset containing the series of daily runoff from 10 watersheds with an area from 0.27 to 21.3 km2, precipitation, meteorological observations, evaporation from soil and snow, snow surveys, soil thaw and freeze depths, and soil temperature for the period 1948–1997. It also highlights the main historical stages of the station's existence, its work and scientific significance, and outlines the prospects for its future, where the Kolyma Water-Balance Station could be restored to the status of a scientific research watershed and become a valuable international centre for hydrological research in permafrost. The data are available at https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.881731.

Monitoring Water Use Regimes and Density in a Tourist Mountain Territory

Lack of water use data at the user scale is frequently noted in integrated water management and water demand modelling studies. This situation affects particularly mountain tourist areas, where high seasonal water demand related to the variation of temporary population are rarely documented. Irrigation is also a major water use in moutain territories but is not commonly measured. This paper proposes a framework for local-scale monitoring of seasonal water use behaviours and their territorial inprint. A monitoring strategy was developed to collect water demand data at thin spatio-temporal scales which were analysed using two concepts: (i) the water use regime, describing the dynamics of water uses throughout the year using normalised values, and (ii) the water use density, expressing the territorial footprint of a water use, in terms of unit area. This strategy was applied in the alpine tourist municipality of Montana (Switzerland). A two-year monitoring campaign of irrigation and drinking water uses was carried out combining in-field measurement (water metres) with interviews of water users. The temporal resolution of the collected water use dataset (bi-weekly, daily) was sufficient to assess the specific water demand patterns and the short-term water use peaks responsible for water stress in Alpine tourist regions. It provided the first irrigation monitoring in the area and a classification of drinking water data according to their spatial distribution, the type of building and the permanency of residents. The water use density method gives a new prespective on the spatial intensity of water uses, highlighting the importance of garden irrigation in Montana. Also, the water use regime method identified July as the period of water demand peaking. The monitoring of water uses at such thin temporal scale constitutes the necessary dataset for the creation of water balance models that accurately reproduce the effective water use behaviours.

GIS Based Landslide Susceptibility Mapping with Application of Analytical Hierarchy Process in District Ghizer, Gilgit Baltistan Pakistan

District Ghizer is a rugged mountainous territory which experiences several landslides each year. There are 16 major landslide areas and 53 villages that are at high risk to hazards. Keeping in view the severity of natural hazards, the present study was designed to generate landslide susceptibility map based on twelve causative factors viz., slope, aspect, elevation, drainage network, Stream Power Index (SPI), Topographic Wetness Index (TWI), lithological units, fault lines, rainfall, road network, land cover and soil texture. Soil texture was determined by particle size analysis and data for other factors were acquired from freely available sources. Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) was employed to identify major landslide causative factors in the district Ghizer. Further, a temporal assessment from 1999 till 2015 was generated to assess the impact of land cover change on landslides. It indicated that the barren soil/ exposed rocks and glaciers have reduced while the vegetation and water classes have shown increment. The total area that lies in moderate to very high landslide susceptible zones was 74.38%, while slope is the main landslide causative factor in the district Ghizer. Validation of the susceptibility map showed 88.1% of the landslides in the study area had occurred in the moderate to very high susceptible zones.

Local climates of Vardar, Struma and Mesta valleys (Balkan peninsula) according to the modified Köppen climate classification

The K?ppen classification is commonly used and helpful for characteristics of different climate types and their changes. Available maps based on this classification are dealing with continental and worldwide zones. This is the reason mountainous territory of the Balkans to be defined as zones with cold or high mountain climate without further details. The main aim of the study is detail classification of the territory of Vardar, Struma and Mesta in the view of the K?ppen system and establishing the inner zones variability trough time. In order to achieve this goal we use the SAT (surface air temperature) and precipitation data from meteorological stations located in key areas of the valleys. We build 30 year moving average to present climate fluctuations in these areas according to the modified K?ppen classification. Results show that index changing is variable through the different periods but there has a tendency for general reduction of the annual precipitation in the whole period of observation.

New Concept of Digital Structuring Landscape Space of Mountain Territories Landscape Sphere

For the first time, a new concept of digital structuring of landscape space of mountainous territories is considered. It is proposed to carry out structuring and classification of landscape systems, with the distribution of high-altitude landscape complexes. When finding the boundaries of these complexes, the high-altitude selection criterion prevailed, as well as quantitative and qualitative changes in their internal content. According to these criteria, it is possible to distinguish between plain, low-slope, low-mountain, dissected-middle-mountain, massive-medium-mountain, altitude-landscape complexes. Structuring and classification are presented for further study of structures as objects of industry indications and possibilities of using high-growing complexes as development areas.

МОДЕЛЮВАННЯ ЕКСТРЕМАЛЬНО ВИСОКИХ ПАВОДКІВ НА ПРИКЛАДІ ГІРСЬКИХ РЕГІОНІВ УКРАЇНИ

In the conditions of modern changes of climate both in Ukraine and in the world on the whole, probability of the extreme hydrological phenomena rises substantially, in particular, catastrophic floods of different origin. The analysis of flood distribution on the territory of Ukraine shows that an overwhelming amount of destructive floods happened in Ukrainian Carpathians, where they are the characteristic feature of the hydrological mode of the rivers. Floods which are observed on the rivers of Crimean Mountains also, for individual years, had catastrophic character. For determination of water discharge calculations in the period of floods on the mountain rivers of Ukraine authors offer a scientific-methodical base which is based on modern scientific achievements in area of theoretical and applied hydrology. Fundamentally new in the proposed model is the separation of factors of forming and transformation of flood flow on slopes and in a river-bed network. The method of numeral solution of task was developed for nonmeasureable descriptions of floods and it found practical application. As a result, the numerical values of the main components of the slope inflow are obtained: the layers of runoff for the flood of 1% probability and the duration of the slope inflow, which are generalized over the territory, taking into account the influence of intrazonal and azonal factors (forestation, mean height of the catchments and karst) and coefficient of time nonuniformity of slope inflow, which are averaged within the studied regions. The process of transformation of slope inflow into channel runoff is described with the help of transformation functions that take into account the time of channel run-up and flood plain regulation. The accuracy of determining the maximum modules of the runoff of 1% probability of exceeding depends on the accuracy of the initial information, which makes it possible to recommend the proposed methodology for practical use in order to increase the level of hydraulic engineering projects and water resources management on the mountain territories of Crimea and Carpathians.

Практическая география и вызовы XXI века (тематическая конференция Международного географического союза, посвященная 100-летию Института географии РАН)

This paper is an overview of the IGU Thematic conference “Practical Geography and Challenges of the XXI Century” dedicated to the centennial of the Institute of Geography of the Russian Academy of Sciences and held in Moscow on June 4–6, 2018. The conference gathered over 750 participants from 37 countries. Its vast scientific program was in particular focused on adaptation of nature and society to climate change. Much attention was paid to such themes as urbanization and urban geography, population mobility, the developments in polar areas, water resources and their use, political geography and border studies, the perspectives of mountain territories, the organization and the functioning of natural parks and reserves. Special symposia were devoted to the formation of “Big Eurasia” and the implementation of Chinese “One Belt – One Road” initiative, and to geographical education shaping the knowledge and skills vitally important for citizens of the XXI century. The papers submitted to the conference concerned the territories of different size, which corresponds to the multi-scale character of geographical problems and approaches used in contemporary geographical studies.

Improvement of economic and information mechanisms of social-economic development of mountain territories

The object of research is the socio-economic development of the mountain territories of the Carpathian region (Ukraine). One of the most problematic places is the existing mechanisms of state management to address the problems of mountain territories. Limited resources, insufficient information need to strengthen the attention of local executive bodies and local self-government, as well as further improve existing instruments of state regulation. The following research methods are used: analysis, extrapolation, SWOT analysis and systemic generalization. In the course of the study, an analysis of the socio-economic development of mountain territories was made. This helped determine the priority industry, namely tourist and recreational. A model of a tourist-recreational cluster is proposed. This will allow creating conditions for effective activity and cooperation of all business entities. In particular, it will contribute to the development and implementation of measures to stabilize and improve the demographic situation in mountain territories, and to reduce the scale of emigration of local residents. Effective mechanisms for the development of the mountain territories of the Carpathian region, namely, a mechanism for monitoring and forecasting factors, mechanisms for implementing state mining policy, mechanisms for influencing the effective use of available resources are determined. This will ensure the harmonization of the interests of all economic entities and will contribute to the growth of the economic potential of the mountain territories of Ukraine. The economic and information mechanisms of state management of the socio-economic development of mountain territories are improved, in which, in addition to the steps for each of these mechanisms, specific actions are indicated. That is, their orientation, security, as well as the final goal and conditions of implementation are given. Thanks to the proposed economic and information mechanisms, the peculiarities of the Carpathian region will be taken into account. Mechanisms contribute to the development of sectoral clustering, the introduction of innovative technologies, taking into account environmental security, the development of the region's infrastructure, increasing employment, social protection of the population and the popularization of the Carpathian region, both inside and outside Ukraine. The essence of the relationship between these mechanisms lies in the fact that the state should regulate those spheres and processes to which the market affects insufficiently or little effectively. This will guarantee the effective development of mountain territories.

"Klub Górski Jelonki" jako miejsce rozwoju rodziny

„Klub Górski Jelonki” jest stowarzyszeniem, które powstało w roku 1996. działa przy parafii Podwyższenia Krzyża Świętego na warszawskich Jelonkach. Zrodziło się wśród młodzieży, wywodzącej się ze środowiska oazowego oraz ministrantów i bielanek, z potrzeby rozwijania pasji chodzenia po górach. Zrzesza ono ludzi, którzy pragną doświadczać Boga poprzez obcowanie z dziełem stworzenia. Poprzez podziwianie piękna stworzonego świata pragniemy zbliżać się do Boga Stwórcy, który z miłości do człowieka obdarzył go wszelkimi dobrami. Autorka przedstawia „Klub Górski Jelonki” jako miejsce rozwoju rodziny. Opisuje Stowarzyszenie nie tylko w świetle jego statutowych celów, jak: propagowanie dziedzictwa kulturalnego ziem górskich, rozbudzanie zamiłowania do turystyki i ziem górskich, organizacja wypoczynku dla dzieci i młodzieży, ale również w aspekcie społecznym, kulturowym, a nawet teologicznym. Ukazuje Stowarzyszenie jako wspólnotę, dzięki której rodziny chrześcijańskie mają możliwość realizowania zadań, o których pisze Jan Paweł II w adhortacji Familiaris consortio. Zdaniem autorki, działania podejmowane przez Klub Górski Jelonki wpisują się w tegoroczne hasło roku duszpasterskiego „idźcie i głoście”.

Перспективні напрями та механізми імплементації європейської практики управління розвитком гірських територій в Україні

Перспективні напрями та механізми імплементації європейської практики управління розвитком гірських територій в Україні

RACK RAILWAY - A WAY TO THE TOP

[For the English abstract and full text of the article please see the attached PDF-File (English version follows Russian version)].ABSTRACT Today there are more than 160 rack railways around the world. Constantly (in winter and summer) about 60 of them operate. Half of all permanent roads are in Switzerland, where, as is known, more than 61 % of the territory is occupied by mountains. A rack railway is a special type of railway with a steep incline, which has toothed wheel gearings, usually located between track rails. The author tells in some detail about the history of their creation, construction and operation. Currently, they are used as a means of moving along tourist routes in mountainous terrain or as urban passenger transport (for example, in Budapest, Zurich or Stuttgart). At the same time, the Swiss rack railways are profitable. In the territory of Russia, there are no rack railways. This despite the fact that in Russia there are also many mountain territories (≈ 33 %). And, as the author rightly points out, rack railways could promote their development and organization of activities that contribute to the development of the local community and the country as a whole. Keywords: mountain relief, tourism, rack railway, history, gear wheel, toothed wheel gearing, turn mechanism, spring shock absorber, Blenkinsop system, Abt system, Marsh system, Riggenbach system, Strub system, Morgan system, Loсher system, Lamell system.

Bridges at the Border: Exploring Tajik-Afghan Borderland Infrastructure

The present-day borders of Tajikistan were established in 1929 and are based on the earlier 1872-3 demarcation between the Russian Empire and the British Empire. Bridges were not an important feature of borderland infrastructure until 1979. Today, five bridges along the border serve as gateways to trade and other exchanges. The ongoing territorial dispute between Tajikistan and China concerns an area of approximately twenty thousand square kilometres of land (about the size of the state of New Jersey), situated high in the Pamirs. It is the most difficult boundary dispute remaining after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The land is also home to the Pamiri, who share their language, culture and ethnicity with people of Eastern Iran and northern Afghanistan. Far from being ‘spaces of refuge’ or ‘isolated, marginalised regions’, these are mountain communities of active, dynamic adaptation, regional nodes in a trade network that traces its heritage more than 3000 years. If resilience to external threat and local conflicts is any measure of legitimate power, the local Pamiri and their ancestors are the undisputed owners of their mountain territory. This paper considers the role of bridges as border infrastructure and as markers of competing notions of ‘ownership’ and influence within the borderland.

Love your neighbor: Nazi soldiers and Femmes Fatales in Czech cinema

Analysis of popular culture can offer a better understanding of spatial representations prevailing in the everyday discourse than the insights inferred from official statements or mainstream scientific textbooks. Our everyday thinking about Central European space might be significantly different from representations outlined in texts written by intellectuals and politicians. In fact, there is a telling absence of common features among representations of different Central European countries in Czech films. These representations shape the process of meaning-making and they can help us better grasp the position of a country in relation to its neighbors too. Except for Germany and Slovakia, other actors from the immediate vicinity are virtually non-existent in Czech visual popular culture. While Germans are mostly male Nazi soldiers, Slovakia is described as an underdeveloped, mountainous territory with oversupply of beautiful, vivacious women. Data from 50 box-office hits and critically acclaimed movies produced during the last 20 years illustrate this argument. Such a systematic study of popular culture is not only more revealing than a simple focus on a few illustrative artworks, but it also increases the added value of discourse analysis that pays attention to predication and membership categories.

Review of the fauna of the bug families Ceratocombidae, Tingidae, Microphysidae, and Reduviidae (Heteroptera) of the Middle and South Urals, with analysis of the zoogeographie structure of the Tingidae fauna

Based on the material of the authors’ collections from the South Ural Reserve (Republic of Bashkortostan), Sverdlovsk and Chelyabinsk provinces, the collections of the Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Ilmen State Reserve (Chelyabinsk Province), and the Institute of Plant and Animal Ecology of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Yekaterinburg), and also the reliable literature data, an annotated list of the true bug fauna of the Middle and South Urals is compiled for the first time. The list includes representatives of the families Ceratocombidae (1 species), Tingidae (45 species of 14 genera), Microphysidae (1 species), and Reduviidae (2 species of 1 genus). The known fauna of the Middle Urals (Perm Territory and Sverdlovsk Province) includes 24 species of Tingidae and 1 species of Microphysidae; that of the South Urals includes 1 species of Ceratocombidae, 41 species of Tingidae, 1 species of Microphysidae, and 2 species of Reduviidae. Six species are recorded from the Urals for the first time: Ceratocombus (Xylonannus) brevipennis Poppius, 1910 (Ceratocombidae), Acalypta gracilis gracilis (Fieber, 1844), Agramma tropidopterum Flor, I860 (Tingidae), Loricula (Myrmedobia) exilis (Fallen, 1807) (Microphysidae), Empicoris culiciformis (De Geer, 1773), and E. vagabundus (Linnaeus, 1758) (Reduviidae). The families Ceratocombidae and Microphysidae were not previously known from this region. The following numbers of species are recorded for the first time for different regions of the Middle and South Urals: for Perm Territory, 2 species of Tingidae; for Sverdlovsk Province, 11 species of Tingidae and 1 of Microphysidae; for Bashkortostan, 1 species of Ceratocombidae, 13 of Tingidae, 1 ofMicrophysidae, and 2 species of Reduviidae; for Chelyabinsk Province, 3 species of Tingidae. The Tingidae fauna of the Middle and South Urals mostly includes species widespread in the latitudinal and longitudinal directions, including 4 Holarctic (8.9%) and 12 Trans-Palaearctic species (26.7%). Ranges of 24 species (53.3%) mainly lie in the “humid” northern part of the Palaearctic (the humid complex of species). Ranges of 21 species (46.7%) mainly lie in the southern part of the Palaearctic, i.e., the Tethyan Region (the arid complex), the Tingidae fauna of the Middle Urals including only 2 species (8.3%) of that complex. Seven species (17.1%) of Tingidae form the arid element in the fauna of Orenburg Province: Kalama henschi (Puton, 1892), Galeatus vitreus Golub, 1974, G. scrophicus Saunders, 1876, Tingis (Tingis) pusilla (Jakovlev, 1873), T. (Tropidocheila) renovata Golub, 1977, T. (Tr.) maculata (Herrich-Schaeffer, 1838), Dictyla subdola (Horvath, 1905). Ranges of 7 species (15.5% of the whole studied fauna of Tingidae) are limited to the Middle and South Urals in the east and northeast. Ranges of 8 other species (17.8%) extend eastwards, beyond the Urals no farther than the south of Western Siberia and Western Kazakhstan. The mountain territory of the Middle and the South Urals obviously serves as a significant orographic and climatic barrier on the way of eastward expansion of some Western- and Central-Palaearctic species of Tingidae.

К вопросу о реинтродукции леопарда на Западном Кавказе

Intensive human exploration of the mountain territories, and the uncontrolled destruction of the Per-sian leopard, has led to that now the predator almost completely disappeared from the Russian part of the Caucasus. Currently, self-healing of the Caucasian leopard population is considered impossible, and the only way out of this situation is the reintroduction of species into former habitats. To solve this problem, in the framework of fundamental research of the Russian Academy of Sciences, with the support of WWF-Russia, the Program to restore the Persian leopard population in the Caucasus has been developed.

Abundances of Anthropogenic Mud Flows in the North Caucasus Region

В статье рассмотрены вопросы воздействия хозяйственной деятельности на селевые явления, причины зарождения селевых потоков. Проведен анализ случаев схода собственно антропогенных (техногенных) селевых потоков на территории Северо-Кавказского региона. На территории селевых активностей возможности конструктивного использования селевых потоков проблематичны. Хотя селевые отложения вполне могут использоваться как строительный материал, тем не менее экономический ущерб от селевых потоков несопоставим с эффектом использования отложений. В связи с повышенным интересом человечества к районам проявления селевых явлений появилось понятие «селевая опасность». В статье рассматриваются причины возникновения антропогенных, природно-антропогенных, техногенных селей. Антропогенные сели, итогом которых являются возникновение новых селевых бассейнов, развиваются в районах наибольшей хозяйственной нагрузки на них. В качестве примера возникновения техногенных селей рассматривается Адыгея, Карачаево-Черкесия и Дагестан, где возможность возникновения селей увеличивается прямо пропорционально отвалам горных пород в бассейнах местных рек. Причинами формирования природно-антропогенных селей служат сведение лесов, деградация луговой растительности, вследствие перевыпаса и неразумного сенокошения, нарушенные углы естественных откосов склонов при любого рода строительных работах, неправильная распашка склонов и другая нерациональная эксплуатация горных территорий. Это приводит к усилению эрозии, возрастанию стока наносов, а затем к развитию селевых явлений. Предлагаемая работа, основанная на исследованиях, научно-технических отчетах, обобщающих документах и публикациях отдела высокогорных гидрометеорологических исследований Северо-Кавказского УГМС, данных о селепроявлениях, содержащихся в литературных источниках, а также на архивных и справочных материалах, является попыткой обобщить имеющиеся материалы о селевой деятельности на территории Северо-Кавказского региона.

Morphostructure of the Sakar and Strandzha Mountains

Abstract The Sakar and Strandzha Mountains are disposed in the South-East end of the Balkan Peninsula (on the both sides of the Bulgarian-Turkish boundary). They belong to the southeastern margin of the Bulgarian continental microplate. They are limit from North Thracian morphostructural zone to the North, the East Thracian morphostructural zone to the South and the Rhodopean morphostructural zone to the West. The observed mountain territory builds the Sakar-Strandzha morphostructural zone. It is divided by Sakar Dervent and Strandzha morphostructural areas. Every of them include morphostructural regions. They are composed by numerous Late Pleistocene-Holocene dome-like morphostructures. The relics from the Post Early Pleistocene concentric morphostructures are distributed in the entire zone. They were determined some archer and concentric Holocene mountain morphostructures. The regional seismic activity (during the last 50 years) outlines three parts of the Sakar-Strandzha morphostructural zone. The western one - the Sakar part is moderate seismic active. The centred - Dervent part is practically seismic „calm“. The eastern one- Strandzha part show a very intensive seismicity. It can by given right in a future (after the necessary investigations) to divide the zone in three areas.