Mountains and Mountain Regions in Bulgaria - Sustainable Development in Mountain Regions: Southeastern Europe - page 36

• the altitude as a factor for unfavourable climatic conditions leading to shortening

the vegetation period of agricultural crops;

• steep terrains (regardless of the lower altitude), hampering the use of agricultural

machinery and requiring more expenses for specialized equipment;

• combination of the above-mentioned two factors, which individually do not

provoke any difficulties;

• regions to the north of the 62nd parallel.

The European legislation has issued guidelines for selection of criteria which are to
help in defining the mountain regions. The aim is to achieve a better synchronization
of the joint research, carried out by different European countries, which concerns
these categories of unfavourable regions. They underlie the Bulgarian normative
documents and projects.

• Regulation 14 from 1 April ( 2003 , on determination of the settlements within the

rural and mountain regions, issued by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forests and
the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works;

• A scientific project of Regulation on defining the unfavourable regions in

Bulgaria (joint research, conducted by the Institute of Agricultural Economics,
the Ministry of Agriculture and Forests, the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences,
etc., 2006;

• Decree 30 from 15 February, 2008, on adoption of a Regulation, dealing with the

identification of the criteria about the unfavourable regions and their boundaries.

4.3 Criteria

Although the criteria in these normative documents for defining the mountain
regions are scientifically substantiated, they are too diverse which implies that mech-
anisms have been suggested for selection of certain areas rather than scientifically
grounded criteria for their determination.
Thus for example, the criteria for identification of the mountain regions in com-
pliance with Regulation 14 from 14 April, 2003, on determination of the settlements
in the rural and mountain regions, are as follows:

• altitude over 600 m;

altitude below 600 m with vertical dissection of relief over 200 m/km 2 , drainage
density over 2 km/km 2 and slope of the terrain over 12 ◦ ;

•

• The municipalities are defined as mountainous if more than half of the settle-

ments' adjacent areas in them belong to mountain regions.

According to a scientific project on the Regulation specifying the identification of
the unfavourable regions in Bulgaria, the criteria for defining the mountain regions
in the country are as follows (Yanakieva and Velev, 2006 ):