Basic concept for water balance assessment in Serbia Brankica Majkic, Prof. Dr. Stevan Prohaska, Dr. Dragoslav Isailovic Institute for the Development of Water Resources “Jaroslav Cerni” Jaroslava Cernog 80,11226 Pinosava, Belgrade, Serbia
[email protected] Abstract: This paper presents the basic characteristics of a developed concept for water balance assessment in Serbia. The starting point is a baseline water-balance equation which reflects all water inputs into a specific catchment area and, following the inclusion of all output and return components (water abstractions and discharges), the available water resources are obtained for a given territory during the discretization period of time. Specifically, the entire territory of Serbia has been divided into nineteen water management balance units to which the established water balance equations apply. The paper highlights interactions between water management balance units. Procedures for the definition of individual components of the established water balance equation are presented at the end of the paper. The paper illustrates a practical example in which the developed concept is used to assess the water balance for a water management balance unit within the territory of Serbia. Key words: water balance assessment, water management balance unit, water inputs, water abstractions, water returns, water discharges. Introduction This paper describes the methodology which was used to assess Serbia’s water balance. Since previous methodologies date back to the 1980-1988 period (1980 Methodology for Water Management Balance Assessments in the Republic of Serbia, Excluding Autonomous Provinces; 1984 Water Management Master Plan Development Methodology for the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina; and 1988 Water Management Master Plan Development Methodology for the Autonomous Province of Kosovo), they had to be re-assessed and new methodologies developed, which rely on new knowledge, current data, and the present institutional organization of Serbia.