Environmental quality and landscape-hazard assessment in the Yantra River Basin, Bulgaria

The objective of the present work is to analyze the role of landscape for environmental security in the Yantra River Basin, exploring its relationships with river-water quality and flood hazard. The relationship between landscape and river-water quality is analyzed on the basis of landscape indicators and assessment tools like Automated Geospatial Watershed Assessment (AGWA) and Analytical Tools Interface for Landscape Assessment (ATtILA). The relationship between landscape and flood hazard is explored using set of floodhazard indicators and the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT). The results from ATtILA implementation show that the main sources of nitrogen loading are the agricultural landscapes and the urban areas in the river basin. The SWAT simulation is done for three scenarios in which land cover (forest lands) changes are related to flood hazard. For the most unfavorable scenario, decreasing forest lands, a significant increase of the river discharge is predicted. The degree of environmental security depends strongly on the specific spatial patterns of landscape change in the river basin.

Keywords: Landscape modeling; water quality; hazard assessment