About the Danube Delta

Danube Delta – Unique natural reserve in Europe

The Danube Delta is the largest wetlands natural reserve area in Europe covering a space of 2.681 km2. In 1990 UNESCO included the Danube Delta, which is the newest land-form in Romania and because of that not touched by the progress of industrialization, among the biospheres reservations. The Danube Delta is an exotic land with over 1200 plants and trees species and around 300 species of birds such as colonies of pelicans and and 100 species of fish including herrings and sturgeon from which the precious caviar is obtained.

The first historical document about the Danube Delta was left to us by the greek Herodot, also known as the “father of history”, which describes King Darius’s fleet passing through the Danube Delta, after he had passed through Histria (515-513 B.C.), Polibiu (III-II century B.C.), describing an area with sand banks between which there were channels with water, Straba (I century B.C.) indicates 7 of these channels where there were islands, idea which was later on expressed by Pliniu cel Batran, Ptolemeu, etc. Proof about the people living here exists from around the I century B.C.. In the XV century A.D. the Danube Delta and whole of Dobrogea are lost to the Turkish Empire and therefore until the XIX century the Danube Delta has been a “terra incognito” Detailed studies about the Danube Delta have been presented by geographers George Vaslan, Constantin Bratescu, naturalist George Antipa, etc.

The geologic structure of the Danube Delta is composed from a crystalline foundation over which lays a transgressive sedimentary represented by a successive Paleozoic, Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous, Neogene and Quaternary deposits discovered through low depth and high depth drilling done in the area. The paleozoic deposits which belong to the Silurian-Permian level (438-230 mil. years.) are made out of limestone, dolomite, silt, lithic sandstones with intercalations of vitroclastice tuffs.

The Danube Delta is situated in a temperate climate area pontic steeps specific. Plain and wide waters covered with different levels of vegetations, disturbed only by sand islands make it a totally different place of the pontic steeps.

This whole space has its own reaction to the total radiation received and the general circulation of the atmosphere resulting in a micro-climates mosaic. The total radiation vary between a minimum of 3.5 kcal/cmp in the winter months and a maximum of 17Kcal./cmp in July. According to the intensity of the barical centres activities result certain weather conditions: calm winter days (for the N-E Europe baric centre), harsh winter days (for the Nord Atlantic anticyclones), hot and dry summer days (for the tropical anticyclones) and rainy summer days (for the mediteranian air and the cold air from N-V Europe).