page_title: Sava
section_title: Hydrology
hierarchical_section_title: Sava / Hydrology
caption_attribution_description: Slovenščina: Razgled iz smledniškega gradu (Zbiljsko jezero)
context_page_description: The Sava is a river in Central Europe, a right tributary of the Danube. It flows through Slovenia, Croatia then against that nation and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and through Serbia, feeding the Danube in its capital, Belgrade. The Sava forms the main northern limit of the Balkan Peninsula, and the southern edge of the Pannonian Plain.
  The Sava is 990 kilometres long, including the 45-kilometre Sava Dolinka headwater rising in Zelenci, Slovenia. It is the greatest tributary of the Danube by volume of water, and second-largest after the Tisza in terms of catchment area and length. It drains a significant portion of the Dinaric Alps region, through the major tributaries of Drina, Bosna, Kupa, Una, Vrbas, Lonja, Kolubara, Bosut and Krka. The Sava is one of the longest rivers in Europe and among a handful of European rivers so long without estuary or delta.
  The population in the Sava River basin is estimated at 8,176,000, and is shared by three capital cities: Ljubljana, Zagreb and Belgrade. The Sava is about ​²⁄₃-navigable for larger vessels: from the confluence of the Kupa in Sisak a few miles below Zagreb.
context_section_description: The average annual flow rate of the Sava River at Radovljica, immediately downstream of the Sava Dolinka and the Sava Bohinjka confluence, stands at 44.9 cubic metres (1,590 cubic feet) per second. Downstream of the Krka confluence the average flow rate reaches 317 cubic metres (11,200 cubic feet) per second, gradually increasing as tributaries discharge along the course—340 cubic metres (12,000 cubic feet) per second downstream of the Sutla, 880 cubic metres (31,000 cubic feet) per second following discharge of the Kupa and the Una, 990 cubic metres (35,000 cubic feet) per second downstream of the Vrbas confluence, 1,180 cubic metres (42,000 cubic feet) per second after the Bosna river empties into the Sava, and finally of 1,564 cubic metres (55,200 cubic feet) per second at confluence of the Sava in Belgrade. The highest flow rate of 6,007 cubic metres (212,100 cubic feet) per second was recorded by Slavonski  Šamac gauging station in May 2014.
  Seven out of eight largest reservoirs in the Sava River basin are in the Drina catchment, the largest among them being the 0.88-cubic-kilometre (0.21 cu mi) Lake Piva on the eponymous river in Montenegro, created after construction of Mratinje Dam. Overall, there are 22 reservoirs holding more than 5,000,000 cubic metres (180,000,000 cubic feet) of water in the basin, with four of them on the Sava, including one on the Sava Dolinka. Most of the reservoirs are used primarily, or even exclusively, for electricity generation, but they are also used as supply of drinking water, industrial water source, for irrigation and food production.
  Groundwater is a very important resource in the Sava River basin, generally used for public water supply of potable water, as a source of water for industrial use, but also as the mainstay of aquatic ecosystems. There are 41 identified significant groundwater bodies in the Sava River basin of basin-wide importance, ranging in area size from 97 to 5,186 square kilometres (37 to 2,002 square miles), as well as numerous minor ground water bodies. Even though most of them are transboundary waters, eleven are considered to be largely in Slovenia, fourteen in Croatia, seven in Bosnia-Herzegovina, five in Serbia and four in Montenegro.
caption: Lake Zbilje upstream from Medvode
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