| Making Agriculture in Bulgaria More Resilient to Climate Change Taking a River Basin Management Perspective Wilfried Hundertmark, Senior Irrigation Specialist Vienna –May 11, 2016

Political Leadership Ministry of Agriculture and Food Irrigation System Company (Company of commercial law; 100% State-owned) Levels of Strategic Engagement Irrigation associations Farmers organizations Private farmers Regional administration River basin directorates Rural municipalities World Bank RAS Team Inter-ministerial Working Group Agriculture and rural development Water environment & irrigation engineering Legal and institutional aspects Baseline Policy analysis Strategic framework Reform agenda European Commission

Drought Conditions in Bulgaria Summer Evapotranspiration (ET) 2013 Number of days with soil moisture deficit during summer mm/year Source: National Institute of Meteorology and Hydrology – Bulgarian Academy of Sciences

What Farmers Do To Adapt to Water Stress

River basin districts East Aegean River Basin District Indicative flood risk Status of water bodies Stara Zagora detail

Key River Basin Management Challenges for Making Agriculture More Resilient What is our main challenge? – Exposure to inter-annual climatic stress – Irrigation infrastructure deficiencies – Underutilization of significant water storage capacity What needs to happen? – Modernize irrigation infrastructure – Provide better access to water saving technology – Improve irrigation service provision (flexibility, reliability and equity) – Manage water resource utilization based on actual water availability and water body status (real-time) – Build a regulatory framework for collective agricultural water management What’s getting in the way? – Access to finance for irrigation modernization investment – Specific ex-ante conditionality under European Agriculture Fund for Rural Development (Article 46 of EU regulation 1305/2013) What are we currently doing about it? – Hydro-melioration sector reform – Strengthening legal status of irrigation and drainage associations – Programming investment support for irrigation infrastructure modernization – Programming investment support for modern irrigation equipment

Institutional Arrangements Agricultural flood protection Irrigation system Drainage system Large reservoirs Municipal systems Municipal flood protection Regional Public Enterprise (public with water user participation) River Basin Directorates (Water environment regulatory function) Irrigation Associations Ministry of Agriculture and Food (Policy functions) Reform of irrigation agency – Decentralized self-governing public law organizations – Each managed by a professional manager with water user participation – Operate backbone irrigation, flood defense and land drainage infrastructure, and undertake river training financed by fees and budget allocation for land drainage/flood defense. Reform of water user organization – Change of legal form from private to public law – Each manage irrigation and drainage system within territory – Self-regulation of irrigation and drainage service fee structure Municipalities Private sector