]> 2026-09-26T02:19:22+02:00 Flood Management in Maritsa River Basin 0 en 52600 Continental (Köppen D-type) 41.669882482,26.5190863609 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? Water Quantity Governance Assets Sovereign state/national/federal government Local Government Supranational union Non-legislative governmental agency Industry/Corporate Interest Community or organized citizens Maritsa Tundja Arda Flooding Flood risk management Maritsa Tundja Arda Flooding Flood risk management|Maritsa Tundja Arda Flooding Flood risk management Agriculture or Irrigation Domestic/Urban Supply Hydropower Generation Industry - non-consumptive use Other Ecological Services 2017-05-29T22:45:33Z 2457903.4482986 Flood Management in Maritsa River Basin 0 1 template 3 [[ASI:+]] [[Case Study::Flood Management in Maritsa River Basin]] Flood Management in Maritsa River Basin# QUERYdbdf3a6158b95b9ab7adb9085bd84a47 0 [8,"smw-constraint-error-allows-value-list","agricultural- cropland and pasture, conservation lands, industrial use, urban","agricultural- cropland and pasture, agricultural- confined livestock operations, conservation lands, industrial use, mining operations, forest land, rangeland, urban, urban- high density, religious\/cultural sites","Land Use"] Flood Management in Maritsa River Basin# ERR76ccac00b166651c0532c92a2995719b 0 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. Flood Management in Maritsa River Basin# 01920c2d8825d13e96fcbc50a4ca5404 0 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. Flood Management in Maritsa River Basin# 4ef8afef8a8551a0692ec41dfb645e25 Case Study 102 en Case Study