Presented by Croatian Team, Vinkovcí

Waters on main land are divided into:

stagnant waters (lakes)

stream water (rivers)

underground waters

Water is the only supstance that comes in three apperances: liquid, ice, steam. We differentiate old and new water Oceans belong to do and ground water to old. Circulation of water is series of flows, above and under surface. Cycle consists of four stages water flow (it’s storage) above and underground, evaporation, condensation and return to Earth.

In ancent times, there were a lot of Oceans on Earth (Iapetus, Panthaloss, Tethys) and today there is Pacific Ocean, Atlantic Ocean and Indian Ocean.. Beside that, some scientists include Arctic and South (Antarctic) Ocean. 40 million km2 of water surfaces on Earth are seas and the rest (361 million km2) are oceans. The interesting fact is that the oceans are named by the greek word „okeanos”. Their approximate depth is 3790m.

The River is one big natural watercourse. They make a riverbed and they stream from spring to mouth. The longest river in the world is river Amazona (16 800km).

We can find ice on every corner of our planet. It dominates the highest mountains of the world and covers almost whole Antarctic. Amount of ice on Antarctic has been estimated to 30 mil. cubic kilometers, what is about 90% of ice on Earth. Today, melting of glaciers is considered to be one of the most dangerous consequences of global warming. Greenland and Antarctic are the most threatened areas. Some scientists believe that glaciers might melt completely by 2050. Glacier melting might jeopardize millions of people all around the world in the future.

A lake is a water filled natural depression on main – land that has no connections with the sea. Finland is also known as Land of a 1000 lakes and Minessota as land of 1000 lakes. The biggest lake in the world is Caspian lake: 394299 km2. and the deepest lake is Balkal lake – 1741km. Dead sea is lake with the biggest salt concetration.

To play or not …

How many people need water? Why is water used?

•daily spending is about 140 liters per person• for drinks 3-6l• washing dishes and 4-7l• bathing : 20-40l

Survey on water consumption in the gymnasium Matija Antun Reljkovića, Vinkovci

• 91.30% of people wash their hands more than 3 times a day

62% of the daily drink about 2 liters of water

57% or more on a daily or several times a day takes a shower

Most water, and 27.3% is used for showering, and 14.8% for drinking

Rivers, lakes, the sea and the coast

Rivers & lakes The longest Croatian rivers are

Sava, Drava and Danube.

The rivers flow into the Black Sea (62% catchment area) and the Adriatic (38% catchment area).

The rivers belonging to the Black Sea catchments are lowland rivers along with numerous flood forests and grasslands.

Due to their limestone base, rivers of the Adriatic catchment areas are short, with frequent rapids and waterfalls.

Lakes in Croatia are few but extremely valuable.

The most well known are Plitvice Lakes that are formed by the Korana River.

This is one of the most well known Croatian National Parks, and the only one included on the UNESCO World Cultural and Natural Heritage list.

River Sava (left)

Plitvice Lakes (on the right)

river Neretva

Adriatic Sea total surface= 138,595km² average depth= 173m It separates the Italian Peninsula from the Balkan peninsula. The Adriatic, possessing low levels of nutritious salts, phosphorus

and nitrogen in particular, is considered to be a sea that is low in productivity.

However, considering the large number of endemic flora and fauna, the Adriatic stands out as a special biogeographical unit of the Mediterranean.

About 6000-7000 plant and animal species have been found in the Adriatic.

Coast The west (Italian) shore is

generally low, but the east (Croatian) coast is generally bold and rocky, with many islands.

Dalmatian coast type is the scientific term for the type of coast, accepted in the geographical literature and named after the southcroatian (Dalmatian) coast.

It stands for the type of coast where the coast and its forms (islands, peninsulas, bays) are parallel to each other.

It is about 5,780 km long and the coastal area has some 1,750,000 inhabitants.

There are over a thousand cliffs and islands, of which only 45 have approximately 126,000 permanent inhabitants.

Nature park Telašćica