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Studies on the effect of climate change on water resources in the 21st century indicate an increase in intense rainfall, an increase in the duration of the dry season, and a decrease in snowfall and, accordingly, snow cover. Based on data from the EURO-CORDEX project, the average multi-year monthly runoff amounts (Copernicus Climate Change Service, Climate Data Store, 2021) for each 30-year period and for the reference period for a rectangular area covering the territory of Bulgaria have been calculated. Climatic ...

Anthropogenic imprints, including hydromorphological pressure and illegal land use through unauthorised dumping and wastewater discharge, are various forms of human activity that often have lasting impacts on the natural environment. Despite this, integrating them into ecological assessments and water and natural resource management remains underexplored at the river basin scale. This study aims to investigate and analyse illegal dumping and pressures on freshwater resources in the Chepinska and Chepelarska River ...

This article examines the mineral composition of the waters of important rivers in the Adjara region: the Chvana, Adjaristkali, Merisi, and Chorokhi. These rivers are part of the Black Sea basin and are used for drinking water supply, domestic needs, and agriculture, while the Adjara region is an important tourist destination. The study was conducted using an IGPE-9820 plasma atomic emission spectrometer. The concentrations of aluminum, boron, barium, beryllium, arsenic, calcium, cadmium, cobalt, chromium, copper,...

This paper evaluates the potential of formation waters from mature oil fields of the Volga–Ural petroleum province as a source of valuable components. The study addresses the growing demand for strategic elements such as lithium, bromine, strontium, and rare earth elements, and the need to identify alternative resource bases. The research is based on a review and analysis of published geochemical data on produced waters from major oil fields, including Romashkinskoye, Orenburgskoye, and Arlanskoye. The concentra...

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are increasingly used in many industries and environmental monitoring systems. They play a particularly important role in the observation and research of difficult-to-access areas, such as watercourses, river basins, reservoirs, and wetlands. The ability to quickly measure basic physicochemical parameters of water, such as temperature, electrical conductivity, pH, and turbidity, is crucial for assessing the condition of the aquatic environment and initiating appropriate actions. The...

This study investigates the development of gravel-gelatin composites as pre-formed monolithic filter elements for borehole wells in unconsolidated sandy aquifers. The composites utilize food-grade gelatin as a natural, biodegradable, and low-cost binder to bond gravel particles into stable blocks, offering an alternative to conventional loose gravel packs that are labor-intensive to install and prone to placement inconsistencies. A systematic experimental approach was employed to optimize key manufacturing paramet...

Mining activities can significantly affect water resources by altering their chemical composition and promoting the mobilization of contaminants in aquatic systems. In this context, this study analyzed the hydrochemical and isotopic characteristics of hydric resources in a mining-impacted region of southern Ecuador in order to identify the main processes controlling water chemistry, determine the origin, and identify potential sources of contamination. Eighteen water samples were collected (10 surface water and 8 ...

Forest evapotranspiration is a key component of the water balance in mountain ecosystems and plays an important role in regulating regional hydrological processes. Accurate assessment of evapotranspiration, a key component of the water cycle, remains challenging due to the spatial and temporal variability of vegetation water use and the limitations of individual observation methods. The objective of this study is to assess forest evapotranspiration in the Rhodope Mountains (Bulgaria), simulated using the open sour...

The present study investigates water consumption patterns in 11 secondary and high school buildings in Sofia, Bulgaria, and evaluates the adequacy of the current regulatory requirements for this category of public buildings. Water consumption and pressure were monitored at one-minute intervals during two annual two-week measurement campaigns for each facility, resulting in a database covering 368 days. Water losses were identified through minimum night flow analysis and excluded from the assessment of effective wa...

The main objective of this study is to outline the spatial distribution of precipitation deficit at both monthly and annual scales by comparing precipitation data from two reference periods: 1961–1990 and 1991–2020. To achieve this goal, monthly and annual precipitation normals from 355 meteorological stations throughout the country are calculated in accordance with the World Meteorological Organization's standards. Data post-processing, statistical analysis and spatial interpolation are performed in the R env...

The aim of this work is twofold: to identify the dominant types of anthropogenic impact on SWQ in the Chepinska and Chepelarska River basins to localise the hot spots of pollution; and to obtain the main land cover units from Very High Resolution (VHR) Airbus Pléiades-1A and SPOT 6 imagery. The assessment of anthropogenic impacts on SWQ is based on an analysis of more than 10 physicochemical parameters, and the CCME WQI, WAWQI, and HPI indices were used. The results show different types of water pollution in the ...

The WatHer project – Water Heritage in European Rural Mediterranean: Re[dis]covering Water Heritage Systems to face climate challenges learning from our past – is funded by the European Union under the Interreg Euro-MED Programme and aims to promote climate change adaptation and disaster risk prevention through ecosystem-based approaches. Running from 2025 to 2029, the project is structured around eight pilot cases across the Mediterranean Basin, from Cyprus to Portugal, focusing on the study, restoration, and...