Revision as of 16:26, 29 May 2017

Summary

Maritsa River (Meriç in Turkish and Evros in Greek) is the longest river that runs solely inside the Balkans. Maritsa River, with its tributaries Arda, Tundza, Ergene and Erythropotamos forms the Maritsa River basin. The basin has three riparians: Bulgaria (upstream), Turkey (downstream) and Greece (downstream). The sole upstream riparian, Bulgaria exploits the hydropower potential of rivers in the basin while downstream countries are devoid of this opportunity because of topographical differences across the basin. Downstream countries mostly rely on basin’s water supply for irrigation and urban/rural drinking water purposes. The basin not only hosts extensive agricultural production, but it is also highly industrialized and densely populated. 

The main transboundary problem of the river basin is the recurring flooding of the downstream regions due to extreme precipitation and water released from reservoir dams and hydropower plants in Bulgaria. Usually the city where three branches of the basin join, Edirne, is severely affected by the floods, along with the villages near the Greek-Turkish border which results in high socio-economic cost for the region. Despite repeated flooding incidents in recent years, riparian states Turkey, Bulgaria and Greece couldn’t manage to set up a multilateral transboundary river basin authority to manage and regulate the water flow and maintain flood control. Parties took initial steps towards multilateral cooperation through a European Union project and they set up an early warning system which reduced casualties in recent floods. Yet the mechanism did not contribute to overcoming socio-economic costs associated with flooding.

The challenge is to convince riparian states for a multilateral approach to mitigate the harms caused by flood. Greece and Turkey, downstream countries severely affected by floods must persuade Bulgaria to a more effective and efficient cooperation in transboundary flood management. All tributaries of the river that contribute to flooding of the downstream regions are in Bulgarian segment of the basin, hence early warning and flood prediction systems must be established in Bulgaria, and Bulgarian authorities must share information with the downstream counterparts. Also, topographical constraints of the downstream flat agricultural plains oblige downstream countries to rely on upstream country on building water storage infrastructure. Existing EU water management frameworks may facilitate cooperation between these three countries but current strained relations between Turkey and EU may hamper possible paths to agreements as well.

Natural, Historic, Economic, Regional, and Political Framework

Geography

Maritsa river is the longest river running solely in the interior of the Balkans with a total length of 540 km. It originates from Bulgaria and forms the border between Greece and Bulgaria in a small segment, and then between forms Greek-Turkish border in its entirety. After crossing the Greek-Turkish border, one of Maritsa’s main tributaries, Arda, and after crossing the Bulgarian-Turkish border, the other main tributary of Maritsa, Tundza, joins Maritsa near the Turkish city of Edirne. The total catchment of the river basin is approximately 53000km2, shared between three riparians and Bulgaria holds the largest basin area and contributes highest annual discharge. Table 1 below shows basin area and annual discharge shares of each riparian.

Share of Basin Area and Annual Discharge in the Basin

Kramer, Annika, and Alina Schellig. 2011. “Meric River Basin: Transboundary Water Cooperation at the Border between the EU and Turkey.” In Turkey’s Water Policy, edited by Aysegul Kibaroglu, Waltina Scheumann, and Annika Kramer, 229–49. Springer.

Issues and Stakeholders

Recurring flooding of the downstream regions due to lack of multilateral cooperation for flood risk management. How can downstream countries convince the upstream riparian for cooperation?

Analysis, Synthesis, and Insight

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Key Questions

Transboundary Water Issues: What considerations can be given to incorporating collaborative adaptive management (CAM)? What efforts have the parties made to review and adjust a solution or decision over time in light of changing conditions?

Maritsa River is subject to great variations in its flow during flooding season, especially in the last 10-15 years. Flooding monitoring and early warning systems can be beneficial for all riparian states as flooding impacts agricultural and urban areas in all three parts of the basin. Yet, biggest beneficiaries will be downstream countries. There were initiatives funded by the EU in the past few years for technical expertise sharing through Bulgaria-Turkey cross border cooperation projects. Technical experts from DSI (Turkey) and NHMI (Bulgaria) met in several meetings, agreed on basic principles for sharing information and initiated plans to install monitoring stations on the Bulgarian side during 2006-2010 period. Subsequent to the completion of three separate EU projects during this period, Bulgaria started to share river flow and dam capacity data to Turkish government experts. However, fast paced developments for cooperation in the basin stalled after momentum in Turkey’s EU accession process is lost. Following three project conducted with EU cross-border funds, successive projects that were initially planned to complement and improve outcomes of previous projects were not executed. The primary reason is the inadequacy of EU cross-border cooperation funds that are allocated for a transboundary river basin shared with a non-EU country. After 2010, there are sporadic technical committee meetings organized by technical experts from Bulgaria and Turkey without an EU framework solely based on bilateral efforts.

Under the current circumstances, steps to adopt good EU practices for flood prevention in other transboundary and trans-regional water basins of the EU can be taken. With EU’s political encouragement and financial support, a flexible tripartite plan between riparians for managing Maritsa River Basin can be enacted with regard to the EU Water Framework Directive. This plan can adopt good practices of river basin management and flood prevention plans in Elbe River Commission’s Flood Protection Action Plan, Ebro River Basin Plan and Rhine 2020 (for Rhine river basin). Also extending the scope of European Flood Alert System (EFAS) to Maritsa River basin can be suggested by the EU member states Greece and Bulgaria with support of candidate country Turkey. The limiting factor is Turkey’s reluctance to adopt EU WFD before acceding to the EU as a full member state and political hurdles to proceed with Environment Chapter in Turkey’s EU accession negotiations.

Transboundary Water Issues: What kinds of water treaties or agreements between countries can provide sufficient structure and stability to ensure enforceability but also be flexible and adaptable given future uncertainties?

Until this date all agreements between riparians are bilateral and parties did not get involved in an effort to agree on a tripartite treaty or plan to manage and monitor water quantity or quality on Maritsa River basin. Treaties that will include mechanisms to address flood prevention, mitigating flooding risks, setting up early warning systems and concrete rules for data sharing is obligatory. However given the irregularity and unpredictability of the river flows in the basin in the last decade, these mechanisms must not be static and parties must embed follow-up efforts in treaties or agreements to assess the effectiveness of the provisions in the prospective tripartite agreement. First, experts from three riparian states for assessing and resolving technical issues related to flood forecasting, prevention and response must be meet in regular and ad hoc meetings. European Commission technocrats and technical experts from other multiparty European basins authorities facing flooding problems must join these meetings. These meetings must be supported by EU funds under cross-border cooperation programs in order to ensure stability and structure of the agreements. Second, non-governmental and non-technocratic stakeholders from the basin, such as local government representatives of cities with different sizes or farmers unions/cooperatives cultivating lands in the basin must be invited to both intergovernmental and technical meetings. Their inclusion would help decision makers to assess the reliability and effectiveness of any potential tripartite basin-wide flood risk management plans. With including this incentive to evaluate technical decisions with the input of different stakeholders, agreements and treaties retain a certain degree of flexibility and adaptability.

Tagged with: Maritsa Tundja Arda Flooding Flood risk management