Revision as of 14:47, 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

Analysis, Synthesis, and Insight

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Tagged with: Maritsa Tundja Arda Flooding Flood risk management