1. Problems of Water
Usage in the North-
Western Region in
Bulgaria
Assist. Prof. Maria Temelkova
Dep. of Geography, NIGGG-BAS
Sofia, 17.05.2012 г.

2. Northwestern part of Bulgaria covers
three districts: Vratsa, Montana and
Vidin

3. Montana district

4. Montana district
• water supply services – 125 515 people(99%);
• sewerage services – 60 620 people(50%);
• serviced settlements - 110
 224 water sources, divided into 22 groups of water
supply, due to three types of networks - gravity,
pumping and mixed
 74 settlements are supplied by pumping ;
 210 groundwater sources- provide about 5-6 million m3
per year
 14 catchments including dam "Srechenska bara"
provide surface water up to 30 million m3 per year

5. Water supply system in town of
Montana
 Population of 43 781 inhabitants
 The source of Montana’s water supply system is
water power system "Srechenska bara" from
which are supplied 22 settlements in the districts
of Vratsa and Montana.
 Dam "Srechenska bara" is an annual equalizer
reservoir with a total volume - 15,5 million m³

6. Designed water quantities that DWTP ”Slatina”
delivers to four directions-Montana, Bercovitsa, Vratsa
and Vurshets

7. Sewerage system in town of Montana
 Since 2010 a new treatment plant provides
complete biological treatment of domestic and
industrial wastewater from the town.
 The capacity of the WWTP has an average daily
flow of 17 840 cubic meters of water and
organic waste 5920 kg per day.
 The WWTP is designed to serve a town with
98 000 inhabitants

8. Vratsa district

9. Vratsa district
• water supply services – 197 691 people (99,8%);
• sewerage services – 116 637 people (59%);
• serviced settlements - 120
 226 groundwater sources, divided into 11 groups
of water supply, due to three types of networks -
gravity, pumping and mixed. They provide about
21 million m3 per year
 dam "Srechenska bara" provide surface water up
to 24 million m3 per year

10. Water supply system in town of Vratsa
 Population of 66 916 inhabitants
 Vratsa is fed mainly by surface water, which
derive from the dam “Srechenska bara” and
partly by spring water catchments -“Bistrets”,
”Ludoto ezero”, “Medkovets” and others.
 Water supply network of Vratza is divided into 8
pressure zones corresponding to the number of
existing pressure reservoirs

11. Sewerage system in town of Vratsa
 Mixed sewage network for waste domestic and storm
waters
 Vratsa has operating waste water treatment
plant / WWTP /. It was designed in 1966 - 1970,
established in operation gradually during 1980 -1985
 Incoming waste water in entrance of the WWTP is
considerably higher than the data used for the detailed
design of 1968 as average daily flow of 43 133 m3/day
 113 l/capita/d is currently the water consumption
according to the present water demand
 101.7 l / capita/ d are wastewater quantities discharged
into sewers from population of the town of Vratza.

12. Vidin district

13. Vidin district
• water supply services – 112 164 people (99,6%);
• sewerage services – 75 149 people (67%);
• serviced settlements - 134
 60 water sources, divided into 4 groups of water
supply, due to three types of networks - gravity,
pumping and mixed
 89 settlements are supplied by pumping ;
 56 groundwater sources- provide about 6 480 087 m3
per year
 4 catchments provide surface water up to 938 112 m3
per year

14. Water supply system in town of Vidin
 Population of 50 547 inhabitants
 Town is not supplied by surface water. It is
supplied by drinking water from two water
catchments zones-"Slanotran’’ and "Kos" . Both
zones draw their water from groundwater.
 PS"Slanotran’’-supplies about 7300 thousand m3
per year
 PS“Kos’’-supplies about 216 thousand m3 per
year

15. Water supply system in town of Vidin
 Water supply system of Vidin consists of two water sources
with pumping stations, main external water pipeline,
external water supply pipelines and distribution network.
 The system includes a water tower with volume V = 500
m3,which is mainly used to manage water supply system.
 In the distribution network constant pressure of about 3.2
Atmosphere is maintained and there are no zones of high
or low pressure. The town has an extremely flat terrain,
which allows precise regulation of pressure in the network

16. Sewerage system in town of Vidin
 Sewerage system of Vidin is mixed for domestic
waste and storm waters
 Domestic and storm water is pumped into the
Danube through two pumping stations.
 Presently wastewater treatment plant Vidin is in
construction. After its completion it will help
preserve the water of the Danube.

17. CONCLUSIONS
 Water resources formed in the Northwestern region of
Bulgaria are generally sufficient to ensure normal supply of
the settlements and the quality of water is good
 The main problem is losses in water supply systems which
are about 50-90%.
 The water management measures should be reconstruction,
and in some cases, complete replacement of water supply
networks that are physically and morally depreciated.
 In many settlements sewerage system needs to be build or
reconstructed and start construction of waste water
treatment plants at least for bigger towns.

18. Thank you for
attention!