| Sava | |
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The Sava as seen from Kalemegdan fortress, Serbia |
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Map of the Sava watershed |
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| Origin | Planica valley, Slovenia |
| Mouth | Danube, Belgrade, Serbia |
| Basin countries | Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Albania |
| Length | 947 km (with Sava Dolinka)[1] |
| Source elevation | 833 m[1] |
| Avg. discharge | 1,700 m³/s[2] |
| Basin area | 97,713 km2 (37,727 sq mi)[2] |
The Sava is a river in Southeast Europe, a right side tributary of the Danube river at Belgrade.[3] Counting from Zelenci, the source of Sava Dolinka, it is 947 kilometres (588 mi) long[1][4] and drains 97,713 square kilometres (37,727 sq mi) of surface area.[2] It flows through Slovenia, Croatia, along the northern border of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and through Serbia. Its middle basin is a natural border of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia. Sava is considered to be the northern border of the Balkan Peninsula.
It belongs to the Black Sea drainage basin, and represents the longest Danube's right tributary and the second longest of all, as well as the richest with water, by far. It drains a significant portion of the Dinaric Alps region, through significant tributaries of Kupa, Una, Vrbas, Bosna and Drina. Sava also the 16th longest river in Europe and the second longest one (after Tisza) that does not join directly a sea.
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The Sava Dolinka starts in the Julian Alps as the continuation of Nadiža Creek at an elevation of 833 m in Zelenci, near Kranjska Gora.[1] A notable (left) tributary of it is the Radovna, which flows through a mountain gorge called Vintgar. The Sava Dolinka flows through Kranjska Gora, Gozd Martuljek and Jesenice, near Bled, and through Lesce. The first in a series of hydroelectric plants on the river, the Moste Hydro Power Plant (22.5 MW), is located near Žirovnica.
The shorter, 31 km long Sava Bohinjka originates under the Komarča wall at an elevation of 805 metres (2,641 ft), from underground sources drained from the Triglav Lakes Valley. Until Lake Bohinj, the river is known as the Savica ("little Sava"), and features Savica Falls (Slovene: Slap Savica) a 60 m high waterfall at its source.[5] Then the Savica River flows through the Ukanc Gorge, where the 3 MW Savica power plant is located. Then it flows into Lake Bohinj, creating a small delta. Afterward, as the Sava Bohinjka, it flows through Bohinjska Bistrica, Bohinjska Bela, and close to Lake Bled, before it joins the Sava Dolinka near Radovljica.
From Radovljica to Dolsko east of Ljubljana, the Sava flows across the Ljubljana Basin. Then it enters the Central Sava Valley (Slovene: Zasavje) and the Lower Sava Valley (Slovene: Posavje).
The Sava drains an area of 97,713 km2. The watershed reaches as far south as northern Albania (115 km2). Its average discharge at Zagreb, Croatia, is 255 m3/s, while in Belgrade it is 1,722 m3/s. It also becomes very deep, up to 28–30 m near the villages of Hrtkovci and Bosut, in Serbia. In Serbia it creates several big river islands, including Podgorička ada near Provo and 2.7 km2 Ada Ciganlija in Belgrade, the most popular Belgrade resort. The island has been connected to the right bank of the river with three causeways creating an artificial lake called "Lake Sava" with an area of 0.8 km2. It is nicknamed the "Belgrade Sea" and it is known to attract up to 350,000 visitors daily in the summer season.
The river has high electricity production potential in its upper course, up to 3.2 (including tributaries 4.7) billion kWh, which has not been used until lately. In addition to the Moste and Savica power plants, there is a third on the Sava, the Medvode power plant (17.8 MW), near Ljubljana. There are also several hydroelectric plants under construction, of which the Vrhovo and Boštanj power plants have already begun electricity production.
The river bed is not regulated for the most of its length. This causes floods from time to time, which can affect as much as 5,000 km2 of mostly very fertile land (the Sava Valley). In October 1964 the Sava flooded Zagreb almost to the center, causing heavy damage and human casualties, after which high levees were built. In 1981 and April 2006, the Sava flooded lower parts of Belgrade. In 1977 & 1980 both federal and inter-republican agreements were signed about regulating the Sava, which were supposed to regulate its waters to prevent flooding, build new power stations, establish full navigation to Zagreb, and ecologically protect its waters, with the final deadline being the year 2000. However, not much was done and Yugoslavia itself broke up in 1991.
East of Ljubljana, the Sava flows through a 90 km long gorge and afterward the Brežice-Krško Plain. As the Pannonian Sea receded, the Sava grew longer and longer, carving the Sava Trench (Slovene: Savski rov) through which it flows to the east. Together with lower courses of Bosnian rivers which became its tributaries, it created huge floodplains. Becoming wide (at Šabac its 680 m wide, while on its mouth only 280 m), the Sava begins to meander and in history changed course many times, being pushed by the gentle slope of the Pannonian bed to the south and by the force of its many right tributaries to the north. Old riverbeds turned into swamps and ponds known as "dead water" (Serbian: mrtvaja) and "old water" (Serbian: starača). The best known is one of the biggest ponds in Serbia and one of the biggest wild birds reservation areas in Europe, Obedska bara.
The hydrological parameters of Sava are regularly monitored in Croatia at the following monitoring stations: across Jesenice, Zagreb, Crnac, Jasenovac, Davor, Slavonski Brod, Slavonski Šamac, and Županja.[6]
Right tributaries:
Left tributaries:
The Sava connects three European capitals: Ljubljana in Slovenia, Zagreb in Croatia, and Belgrade in Serbia. Even though Ljubljana was built on the Ljubljanica, a tributary of the Sava, as the city grew bigger it included existing settlements on the Sava such as Črnuče or Zalog, and so the Sava now flows through Ljubljana's outskirts.[7][8] In both Zagreb and Belgrade, the Sava divides old and new parts of the cities (Zagreb-Novi Zagreb, Belgrade-Novi Beograd). After Ljubljana, the Sava flows through Litija and the highly industrialized Central Sava Valley, including the cities of Zagorje ob Savi, Trbovlje, and Hrastnik, continuing past the important railway junction of Zidani Most, and on to Radeče, Sevnica, Krško, Brežice, and Čatež after which it crosses into Croatia. Passing through Zagreb, it continues through Sisak at the mouth of Kupa River, and Jasenovac, where it forms the border between Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia, with many dual settlements on both sides of the border: Bosanska Gradiška/Stara Gradiška, Srbac/Davor, Bosanski Kobaš/Slavonski Kobaš, Bosanski Brod/Slavonski Brod, Bosanski Šamac/Slavonski Šamac, Orašje/Županja, and Brčko/Gunja, soon after which it enters Serbia, where important places are: Jamena, Sremska Rača, Sremska Mitrovica, Klenak, and Šabac. Then it flows through the Belgrade suburbs of Zabrežje, Obrenovac, Umka, and Ostružnica until it finally empties into the Danube in Belgrade.
The Sava is navigable for 593 km, from its confluence with the Danube until the mouth of the Kupa at Sisak. Smaller crafts can navigate further upstream until Zagreb, but there are plans of dredging it to become fully navigable.[9] The river is open for international flowing and conditions with regard to available depth are varying according to the meteorological circumstances.[10]
The Sava Valley is also a natural route for land traffic, which includes the railway and Belgrade-Zagreb freeway and routes of oil and gas pipelines from Croatia to Serbia. As a result of all this traffic and densely populated and industrialized areas it flows through, the river is very polluted east of Sisak and not much has been done to improve its conditions.
The Baptism at the Savica Waterfall (Slovene: Krst pri Savici) is a national epic written by the most influential Slovene poet France Prešeren.
Even though name Sava became very common among (and not only South) Slavs, especially as a form of personal name, either male or female, and has a "Slavic tone," the river's name is not Slavic but Celtic and Roman in origin; the Latin name was Savus. The old Celts associated their river goddess Adsullata with the Savus.
The Sava marks the northwestern boundary of the Balkan peninsula (Southeast Europe). All lands north of the Sava (e.g. Vojvodina, northern Croatia, most of Slovenia, etc.) are geographically within Central Europe. With the changes of the political climate, the boundary also changed. In Yugoslav times the whole Sava was considered the border (thus promoting mutuality among different Yugoslav peoples), which placed even parts of Italy (Trieste area) as a part of the Balkan peninsula. After splitting from Yugoslavia, the border was set by some to be the Sava-Kupa line (The Kupa forms a part of the southern Slovenian border, with Croatia), and then to the Adriatic; placing Belgrade in the Balkans, but Zagreb and Ljubljana outside the Balkans.
Sava was the longest river flowing completely within Yugoslavia, until the breakup of the country in 1991.
The river is adjacent to the Tacen Whitewater Course which hosts a major international competition almost every year, examples being the ICF Canoe Slalom World Championships in 1955, 1991, and 2010.
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