Water as a strategic resource: the new ESC analysis on irrigation, and why nature is part of the infrastructure

Burgas, July 2026

On 10 July 2026 the Economic and Social Council of the Republic of Bulgaria adopted, in plenary session, an own-initiative analysis on “The state and prospects for the development of irrigation in Bulgaria” (ESC/4/111/2026). The Via Pontica Foundation took part in the work on the document through the membership of its founder and chair of the Management Board in the Council, and a number of our proposals — concerning water regulation, the role of wetlands and environmental safeguards in any expansion of water use — found their way into the final text. For us this is an occasion to discuss a subject that lies at the heart of our mission: how Bulgaria will manage its water under a changing climate.

The European context: the crisis is no longer a forecast

The last decade is the warmest ever recorded in Europe. Economic damage from drought on the continent amounts to some 9.4 billion euro a year, with agriculture bearing more than half of it. Bulgaria is explicitly named in European reports among the countries facing a growing risk of desertification and degradation of agricultural land — alongside Greece, Romania, Italy and Portugal. The figures for Eastern Europe are particularly troubling: a significant annual decline in soil water content has been recorded across 84 % of agricultural land, reaching 96 % in the summer months.

Behind these numbers lies a deeper truth, which the analysis formulates precisely: the water crisis in Europe is not only a matter of scarcity but also of excess. Dry soils lose the capacity to absorb water, and in heavy rainfall the water runs off the surface rapidly instead of recharging the groundwater. Drought and flooding reinforce one another. The challenge, therefore, is not simply the quantity of water but water regulation — the capacity of ecosystems and of managed systems to absorb, store and release water at the right moment.

The Bulgarian paradox: the capacity exists, the water flows, but it goes unused

The figures for Bulgaria speak for themselves. Of close to 5.4 million decares of land suitable for irrigation, only around 350,000 decares were actually irrigated in 2025 — 6.5 % of the installed capacity. More than 93 % of the country’s irrigation potential remains dormant. The open canals built in the 1960s and 1970s lose 70–80 % of the water on its way to the field. And the last census of irrigated areas was carried out in 2000 — we are managing a water resource on the basis of data a quarter of a century old.

The Council’s analysis rightly points out that the problem has two mutually reinforcing dimensions: physical degradation of the infrastructure and administrative degradation of the regulatory environment. Among the twenty-one conclusions and recommendations are the development of a National Irrigation Strategy 2028–2038, reform of the Water Act, genuine registration of wells and boreholes, priority introduction of drip irrigation, and the reuse of treated wastewater.

The Via Pontica perspective: nature is water infrastructure too

For us, as a conservation organisation, it matters particularly that the analysis moves beyond the narrow logic of concrete and pipes. Its strategic framework states explicitly that the temporary storage of winter water surpluses should also be achieved through nature-based solutions — small water bodies, wetlands, catchment management, and that irrigation means not using more water, but turning periods of surplus into a resource for periods of need.

This is precisely the principle we observe daily at the Vaya Eco-Park. The restored wetland in the Burgas Lakes complex acts as a natural buffer: it holds water during rainfall, recharges the groundwater, cools the microclimate through the summer heat and at the same time sustains biodiversity along the Via Pontica flyway. Wetlands are not agriculture’s competitor for water — they are its natural ally in regulating it.

In the same spirit the analysis issues a warning we fully share: the network of nearly 6,800 small dams across the country, built during the last century as a system of distributed water retention, is slowly being dismantled — the structures are decommissioned one by one, because that is cheaper than maintaining them. Each individual closure looks justified, yet taken together the country is losing strategic water storage capacity precisely when the climate is making it more valuable than ever.

Safeguards for nature

Expanding access to water for agriculture must not come at the expense of ecosystems — and it is important that the adopted text contains explicit safeguards. The proposed simplified notification regime for small abstractions does not apply to withdrawals capable of affecting Natura 2000 sites or water bodies at risk. Use of the resource of the southern rivers — the Maritsa, the Mesta and the Struma — is tied to securing the necessary ecological flow downstream. And giving agriculture priority over electricity generation during the critical summer months restores a sensible hierarchy in the use of a resource we all share.

Instead of a conclusion

Water security is not a sectoral question for farmers, nor solely an environmental cause. It is a condition for food security, for life in rural areas and for the resilience of the ecosystems on which we all depend. The Council’s analysis shows that Bulgaria has the built capacity, has the water resource and has a European framework for financing — what it lacks is the consistency to bring them together. The Via Pontica Foundation will continue to work — in the field in the wetlands of Burgas, in national advisory bodies and at European level — so that water is managed as a common good, with respect for the natural systems that sustained it long before the first irrigation canal.

The full text of analysis ESC/4/111/2026 is available on the website of the Economic and Social Council.