Vlasina (river)

Vlasina
Physical characteristics
Mouth	Južna Morava, east of Leskovac, Serbia
Length	68 km

The Vlasina (Serbian Cyrillic: Власина), is a river in southeastern Serbia, a 68 km-long outflow of the Vlasina Lake and a right tributary to the Južna Morava, which also gives its name to the surrounding Vlasina region.

River

The Vlasina flows out from the Vlasina Lake at an altitude of 1,213 m. Lake used to be a large, muddy peat bog, but in 1947-51 the Vlasina was dammed by the long, earth dam and the bog was turned into an artificial lake.

The river flows to the north, between the mountains of Čemernik on the west, and Gramada on the east. It flows through Crna Trava, regional and municipal center, and the villages of Brod, Krstićevo and Jabukovik, where it reaches the Lužnica mountain and receives the Gradska reka from the right.

The river bends to the west, along the southern slopes of Lužnica, and receives from the right the Tegošnica (at Donje Gare village) and the Lužnica (at Svođe). As the Vlasina continues on the southernmost slopes of the Suva Planina and Babička Gora mountains, it reaches the town of Vlasotince and western parts of the low Leskovac field, part of the composite valley of the Južna Morava. After the villages of Batulovce and Stajkovce, the Vlasina empties into the Južna Morava, east of the Leskovac's eastern suburb of Mrštane.

The Vlasina drains an area of 1,050 km², belongs to the Black Sea drainage basin and it is not navigable.

On 26 June 1988, after a period of heavy rains, Vlasina was a site of catastrophic torrent floods. The area affected by the catastrophe covered more than 1000 km², and caused a damage of around US$1 billion, despite the river flow being supposedly regulated. Subsequent analysis showed a number of flaws in the design of the protected catchment.

Region

The Vlasina region is a border area to Bulgaria, a Šopska region of the Rhodopian Serbia, with old rocks and mountains. Near Vlasotince, remains of the ancient volcanic eruptions are quite visible.

The region consists of fours smaller, micro-regions: Crna Trava, Znepolje, Lužnica and Vlasotince.

The largest center of the whole region is the town of Vlasotince, but in general, the area is one of the least developed in Serbia, very poor and extremely depopulating. Population of Crna Trava municipality, by censuses:

• 1953 - 13,748
• 1961 - 12,513
• 1971 - 9,672
• 1981 - 6,366
• 1991 - 3,778
• 2002 - 2,563

Accordingly, density also plunged, from 43 per km² in 1953 to only 8 per km² in 2002.

A circular freeway connects the valleys of the Vlasina and Južna Morava rivers.

In 2005 Hellenic Bottling Co., a subsidiary of The Coca Cola Company, bought the local water factory ("Rosa" is a trademark for this water) which is located close to the Vlasina source thus causing potests of the local environmentalists. Activists from the "Eco base South" (Eko baza Jug) were afraid of overexploitation drying out the sources of the river.

References

• Mala Prosvetina Enciklopedija, Third edition (1985); Prosveta; ISBN 86-07-00001-2
• Jovan Đ. Marković (1990): Enciklopedijski geografski leksikon Jugoslavije; Svjetlost-Sarajevo; ISBN 86-01-02651-6
• Veliborka Staletovic, Environmentalists Against Exploitation of Potable Water, 23 February 2005, published at [1]
• Gavrilovic, Zoran (1991). "Review of disastrous torrent flood on the vlasina river on June 26, 1988". Lecture Notes in Earth Sciences, Berlin Springer Verlag. 37: 235–250. doi:10.1007/BFb0011177. Retrieved 2007-07-02. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)