Environmental issues in Bulgaria
Like other countries in theSoviet sphere of influence,Bulgariastrongly emphasizedheavy industryandintensive agriculturebut did notmitigate the environmental consequencesof such a policy. As a result, in the early 1990s an estimated 60 percent of agricultural land was polluted byfertilizersandpesticides,two-thirds of rivers werepolluted,and two-thirds of primary forests had beenleveled.
Althoughenvironmental awarenessimproved in the post-communist era, the state’s lack of administrative strength and fears ofunemploymentprevented the curtailment of many dangerous practices. For example, the four reactors of Bulgaria’s onlynuclear power plant,theKozloduy Nuclear Power Plant,were declared unsafe in the early 1990s, but the first reactor closure occurred only in 2003. All four of the originalVVER-440/230 reactors have since been shut down, with only the two newer VVER-1000 units still in operation.
Because cleanup has been economically problematic in the post-communist era, in the mid-2000s Bulgaria still had grave environmental crises. Among them wereair pollutionfrom industrial emissions; the inability to filter effluents into rivers, leading to concentrations of untreatedsewage,heavy metals,anddetergents;severely depleted naturalforest cover;forest damage from air pollution and resultingacid rain;andsoil contaminationby heavy metals resulting from improperindustrial wastedisposal.
In the 1990s and early 2000s, a rapid increase in motor vehicles usingleaded fuelexacerbated urban air pollution. The agency responsible for protection against all forms of environmental pollution is the Ministry of Environment and Water. The prospect of membership in theEuropean Union(EU) is expected to raise Bulgaria’s environmental standards.
Bulgaria had a 2018Forest Landscape Integrity Indexmean score of 6.09/10, ranking it 86th globally out of 172 countries.[1]
References
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This article incorporates text from this source, which is in thepublic domain.Country Studies.Federal Research Division.