engleski

Groundwater-related coastal wetlands: Neretva Delta River wetland (Croatia)

Wetland is a collective term used for marshes, swamps, bogs and similar areas, which are covered periodically with water. Wetlands are defined directly or implicitly in a variety of ways. Several factors, including personal perspective, position in the landscape, and wetland diversity and function, contribute to the tractable nature of the definition. Each individual or group brings to the definition its own perspective based upon cumulative experience and personal needs. In accordance with previously mentioned definitions each mouth of the Croatian rivers into the Adriatic Sea, as well as each permanent or temporary lakes and flooded karst poljes near sea coast can be treated as a wetland. If we accept this concept, in Croatia there are a lot of small coastal wetlands. Each of them have very different characteristics (dimensions, water quantity and quality, hydrological and hydrogeological characteristics, climate etc.) but they all are extremely endangered more by human interventions than by climate changes and/or variability. The Neretva River forms a worldwide unique karst delta, where the tributaries entre the logons and lakes through underground aquifers. On 18 January 1993 the Neretva Delta River Wetland Ramsar Site NRDW) was designated as a Ramsar site. Its area is 12, 742 ha. Altitudes of the NRDW range between ±0 m above sea level (m a.s.l.) and 135 m a.s.l.

wetland; karst; polje; Neretva River Delta Ramsar Site

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