Reservoirs supplying Bulgarian settlements with fresh water have plummeted to critical levels in the last few weeks - mainly because of the recent drought, but also in many cases because of bad infrastructure, poor management, overuse for other purposes - or a combination of the above.
Last Tuesday, for example, caretaker environmental minister Peter Dimitrov said that the integrated water cycle of the town of Shumen, which was recently repaired with a 90 million levs investment, still runs at a staggering 80% loss of water supply. The situation continues to be dire in the Pleven region as well, where there is no dam to supply the area with drinking water. A few days ago, the local water and sewerage authority introduced an even stricter water regime - it stops at intervals from 10:00 to 18:00 and from 22:00 to 6:00.
The retention of low volumes is the most serious since 2010, according to an analysis by the Ministry of Environment and Water (MoEW). The lack of spring high water is having its effect, and inflows so far are relative to or lower than those typical of a very dry year. This, in turn, has resulted in the introduction of rationing regimes across the country - for the month of November, the authorized water volumes had to be reduced by about 7%.
Where the situation is most critical
Currently, some of the the dams used for drinking water supply - Ticha, Kamchia, Yastrebino, Yasna Polyana, Asenovets, Srechenska Bara, Yovkovtsi, Kalin and Karagyol - are at low levels compared to previous years. But so are the dams Domlian, Piasatchnik, Topolnitsa, Koprinka and Zhrebchevo, from which significant volumes of water are used for irrigation.
At current levels, the provision of drinking water supply in 2025 from the Kamchia and Yasna Polyana dams is a concern, and the Ticha dam will not guarantee water supply in 2026. The Kamchia dam currently has 32.1 million cubic meters of water and the inflow is almost zero. This means that with an average daily consumption of just over 180,000 cubic meters, there is less than 6 months of water in Kamchia if the drought continues. The Aheloy and Poroy dams, which were supposed to be the backup for the Northeastern region, are not a solution - the first one has water for about a month if it is connected to the mains at all, which is not the case, and the second one is empty.
If the drought continues, the Ticha, Koprinka, Zhrebchevo, Domlian, Topolnitsa and Sandstone dams will not be able to provide irrigation in central Bulgaria for the next season. The MoEW appealed for urgent action to ensure continued drinking water supply to the settlements, especially along the southern Black Sea coast, and for the water operators to refine their annual schedule requests for 2025, taking into account all possible backup and alternative water sources, the permitted limits in the issued permits and the available volumes in the dams.
How did it get so bad?
In short, years of neglected breakdowns of the plumbing infrastructure have caused huge losses and lack of investment. Most of the current water problems are fundamentally down to mismanagement of the sector, but the drought and heat of recent summers have exacerbated the situation. Even without climate change, more than 60% of water is lost on the country's amortized water supply network, and in some places like Shumen this percentage reaches 80%.
In recent years, Bulgaria has faced a host of water problems. In 2019, the low level of the Studena dam caused a water regime in Pernik, Batanovtsi and nine villages, with the crisis affecting more than 100,000 people. Two years ago, water on the Iskretska River "mysteriously" disappeared, but it also "mysteriously" re-appeared after the National Electric Company (NEK) released the water that was going to Energo-Pro's Petrohan cascade. In Tsarevo, several ravines, which otherwise no longer exist as rivers, flooded the whole town last year. This year, hundreds of settlements were on a water shortage regime or without water at all for months because of the dry summer.
The dry, hot summer this year has particularly highlighted the effects of ineffectual water system management. The problem is largely managerial and the solutions slow, expensive and difficult.
The Ministry of Ecology calls on the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works to coordinate with water operators to include new water sources, where possible, and rehabilitate old ones for alternative drinking water supply, and to substantially reduce losses on the water network. However, water utilities and municipalities say that the procedures for this are very long and such actions are unlikely to be a quick fix.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Food (MAF) and Irrigation Systems have also been informed about the condition of the water bodies and asked to take steps to rehabilitate compromised and restore existing irrigation networks to reduce losses and prevent water wastage. However, this is a problem that will take years and hundreds of millions of investment to solve, given that more than 80% of the Irrigation Systems state-owned company network is now either non-existent or completely dilapidated. Add to that the serious problems that the company already faces - that it will have to restrict irrigation water supply next year if the trend of no water continues, causing significant problems for agriculture - and the puzzle becomes overwhelming.
The alternative solutions
With the water supplies running critically low, the aim of the measures coming from the MoEW has been to achieve a balanced allocation of the available resource and to promote its sustainable use and conservation in the event of insufficient inflow. However, this will not fill the dams per se, and forecasts for the coming weeks do not indicate significant rainfall.
Relatively quicker and unpopular solutions proposed by the NGO sector are to make constant checks for illegal inclusion in the water supply system of settlements under water regime. Identifying leakages from water supply systems and planning investments to stop the losses are also solutions, but not quick ones.
The Green Laws NGO appealed for the installation of metering devices at all water intake facilities (according to data from the Sofia Water Supply and Sewerage Company, 3% of water intake facilities have such devices). There was such a project under the Recovery Plan, but it was eventually dropped. The association insists that this should be done, if necessary with national funds. It is important, they say, that water measurements are made at the entrance to settlements, allowing the condition of individual water supply systems to be assessed and necessary measures to be planned.
Other proposals are to prohibit the issuance of water use permits for new hydropower plants and the removal of sediment from rivers and dams without proven necessity. Also the extraction and mining of sand by means of dredgers, dredge pumps and other similar equipment that cause suffosion, according to the Balkanika NGO.
Reservoirs supplying Bulgarian settlements with fresh water have plummeted to critical levels in the last few weeks - mainly because of the recent drought, but also in many cases because of bad infrastructure, poor management, overuse for other purposes - or a combination of the above.
Last Tuesday, for example, caretaker environmental minister Peter Dimitrov said that the integrated water cycle of the town of Shumen, which was recently repaired with a 90 million levs investment, still runs at a staggering 80% loss of water supply. The situation continues to be dire in the Pleven region as well, where there is no dam to supply the area with drinking water. A few days ago, the local water and sewerage authority introduced an even stricter water regime - it stops at intervals from 10:00 to 18:00 and from 22:00 to 6:00.
