RESERVOIR ON THE BARCAU RIVER FLOWS NEAR EFFECT OF THE SALARD TEMPORARY STORAGE THE ROMANIA-HUNGARY BORDER

The Barcau River is a transboundary river, which forms a component of the Cris hydrographic basin. The river is nearly 134 km long and drains an area of 1,960 km

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on the territory of Romania. The shape of the hydrographic basin, the presence of the soils with reduced permeability, intensive rainfalls and the low conveyance capacity of the minor Barcau riverbed as well as of its tributaries, are the major causes of frequent floods. The largest floods were recorded in 1970, 1974, 1980 and 1997. The existing flood protection works throughout the hydrographic basin consist mostly of dykes (about 101 km long, on either riverbank) and bed regulation works (nearly 134 km long). They correspond to the flood protection storage volumes provided in local storage reservoirs situated on the main tributaries, and a temporary storage reservoir, of the polder type, situated right upstream the Salard municipality. First, the main river course was dyked - along a 17 km distance between the Romanian- Hungarian border and Salard (dykes continue on the Hungarian territory up to the Tisa River) in order to protect the settlements and agricultural lands in the lower basin against floods. The construction of dykes was continued between 1985 and 1989 on both banks of the Barcau River, in the upstream direction, to the town of Marghita.