Reclaiming rivers for Implementation of Vital and Environment-friendly Renewable energy Source

The cross border municipalities are less attractive for investments due to their remoteness from the Capital and big industrial centers. The GDP is lower than national GDP and unemployment rate is higher. Despite the above negative facts the cross border regions are rich of natural resources. The area around river basin of Nisava, Erma and Struma as well as Vlasina Lake and Pchelina artificial lake is water rich and with beautiful nature. The most suitable economic sectors for development in these regions are: tourism, light industry and renewable energy. The current project is aimed to boost any small hydro power projects in the region and especially those for hydraulic screw drive power developments. Although the hydropower is encouraged as renewable energy sources according to the EU and national policies in the fields of Environment and Energy, their construction often result in negative impacts on the river ecosystem. The hydraulic screw drive turbine technology is innovative and is expected to minimize the environmental and social risks in the area for the following reasons: -Low technological requirements for water pressure/ discharge gives the opportunity to utilize the technologies with partial watercourse barring without fragmenting the river continuity; -Fish-friendly technologies, which do not block the fish migratory roads and does not kill fish if occasionally fallen into the turbine.; -No impact on the river discharge or hydrological regime. However the exact environmental and social impacts on the site depend on the particular environmental characteristics as well as to respecting some good practices in construction/installation. Minding the above we going to perform additional to hydrologic, geodetic and geologic also environmental and anthropologic studies. Results of the studies will be summarized in a Guide for implementation of the small hydraulic screw drive developments and the full text of studies will be published on the project website.

The project envisioned and achieved the following results: - Two Opening Press Conferences in Nis and Sofia and two Final conferences as well as 2 Workshops and 14 Partnership meetings ; Press conferences were widely covered in the local press; Two additional meetings between the experts were carried out due to the necessity of better synchronization between the researches; - Nine studies were performed including: Developed Common Methodology; Hydro power energy study; Comparative study completed; Site study, Geological Analysis, Analysis of hydro power potential sites, Analysis of infrastructure, Environmental study, Anthropological research. Most of the studies were performed simultaneously on both side of the border by Bulgarian and Serbian teams.; - Guide for implementation of small hydro screw drive developments in three languages: 750 copies - 250 in each language - Bulgarian, Serbian and English; 80 pages. - Web site of the project containing the full scope of materials developed during the project in three languages: www.riversproject.eu The project was successfully completed in April 2014.