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ReSAC and partners in mapping of freshwater and marine ecosystems and their services in Bulgaria

ReSAC together with partners from Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem research (Bulgarian Academy of Sciences), Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe (REC) Bulgaria and Club “Economika 2000” are finalizing the project “Freshwater ecosystem services mapping and assessment in Bulgaria (FEMA), Contr. Д-33-87/27.08.2015”.

The project duration is 20 months (with extensions) and started in Sep. 2015. The projects is financed by Program BG03 “Biodiversity and Ecosystems” and co-financed by the Financial Mechanism of the European Economic Area (EEA FM 2009-2014)

The project final international conference was held at 31st of March 2017 in Hotel Metropolitan, Sofia, Bulgaria. The aim of the conference was to present the progress and results of the project and to identify best practices in evaluation of ecosystem services.


Pic. 1 Vassil Vassilev, Project manager in ReSAC, is presenting the project results


Pic. 2 Overview of the conference room

The specific goal of the project is assessment of the freshwater ecosystems in Bulgaria, following the national methodology, which comply with the technical specifications of the National Information Network for Biodiversity.

As an additional activity the project is extended with Mapping and assessment of the marine ecosystems and their services in Bulgarian Black Sea aquatory. The main goal of the additional activity (sub project) is to identify and map the marine ecosystem types in the EEZ of the Republic of Bulgaria according to the requirements of Action 5 of the EU 2020 Biodiversity Strategy, using currently available public data, and applying the developed specialized methodology for the marine ecosystems.

The area covered by the project: 100% of all freshwater ecosystems outside Natura 2000, and Bulgarian Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) in the Black Sea.

Final results of the project:

  • 7 200 standing water bodies: lakes, dams, reservoirs etc. (scale 1:10 000), 3400 out of which larger than 1ha; with defined eco type;
  • 32 000 river segments, with total length of 50 000km, mapped (scale 1:10 000 and outside NATURA 2000), and ecotype defined for all rivers in Bulgaria (scale 1:100 000)
  • Mapping 14 ecosystem types;
  • Analyses of:
    • 43 indicators for ecosystem condition
    • 31 parameters for ecosystem services


Fig. 1 Example – Map of freshwater ecosystem types

  • 37’742 sq. km area coverage of marine ecosystem types (in EEZ)
  • Analyses of:
    • 15 indicators for marine ecosystem condition
    • 36 indicators for marine ecosystem services


Fig. 2 Example – Map of marine ecosystem types

  • Comprehensive, common database for freshwater and marine ecosystem types, ecosystem conditions and ecosystem services. Every river segment or standing water body is one object in the database.

More information for the two projects on:
Freshwater – freshwater-ecoservices-bg.eu
Marine – marine.freshwater-ecoservices-bg.eu
or resac-bg.org/en/news.html