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Topical - Geoheritage
of this area of international value. At the
end of 2011 another threat appeared at
the lakes. Despite the organized control in
the Park, barriers at the Lower lakes were
mechanically damaged, and several small
young lakes were destroyed (Fig. 9). This
devastation caused the additional fall of
water levels in the Lower lakes (Fig. 9).
Conclusions
The Plitvice Lakes National Park in
Central Croatia is a dynamic hydrological
complex extremely sensitive to natural and
anthropogenic processes. The equilibrium
of physical, chemical and biological features
in the lakes can be easily undermined by
global warming, decrease of precipitation
and input of organic matter.
Natural processes are hard to control,
but human influence should be carefully
maintained by the Park Public institution.
Figure 6: Sunken remains of tufa barrier in the lake Kozjak (Božićević, 1995).
Figure 7: Mean annual temperatures (a) and mean annual water flow (b) for Plitvice lakes (Barešić, 2009).
Figure 8: Distribution of 14C in atmosphere and wood at Plitvice (a) and tritium in precipitation in Zagreb and Plitvice area with pronounced peaks due to
the nuclear weapon tests particulary in the period 1952-1963 (Barešić, 2009).
European Geologist 34 | November 2012
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