SPICOSA: Danube Delta

Danube Delta-Romanian-Bulgarian Coastal Zone. The Black Sea lies between Southeastern Europe and Asia Minor. The Danube Delta is located around the area where the Danube River flows into the Black Sea in Dobrogea, Romania and a small part in Odes'ka oblast', Ukraine.

The Black Sea has an area of 422,000 km² and a maximum depth of 2210 m. The basin is anked among the most ecologically threatened water bodies of the world, it has unique natural eatures -presence of H2S at a depth below 150m (13 % of the total Black Sea domain supports ife), drainage area exceeding 5 times the surface area of the basin, very low water exchange ate, low salinity and is under great anthropogenic pressure due to the substantial fresh water nput (especially in the North-Western part of the basin), that determine the extremely high sensitivity of the Black Sea ecosystem to external forcing.
The Danube basin, Delta and Black Sea represent a continuum of closely related ecosystems. The Romanian Black Sea coast is the most subjected to freshwater flow area, the Danube river loads (Danube delta) contributing substantially to the coastal ecosystem degradation. Due to its geographic position and the pattern of the main Black Sea currents the Bulgarian Black Sea shelf is under the strong influence of the major freshwater inflow from the North-West.

The Black Sea is the only basin with a drainage area five times larger than the sea. The inflow of freshwater from the surrounding areas, especially central and middle-Eastern Europe mounts to 320 km³ per year. The most important river entering the Black Sea is the Danube, eceiving runoffs from substantial parts of seventeen European countries including major ndustrial and agricultural areas. The watershed of Danube is 817,000 km². The Danube Delta is he largest and best preserved of European deltas, with an area of 3446 km². Romanian irrigated and is 31,020 km2, the arable land- 41 %, permanent pastures-21 %, while the permanent crops
are 3 %. In Bulgaria 40.02% of the total land is arable land, whilst permanent crops are 1.92%.