Orjen National Park

Orjen National Park
	Pirina Poljan Valley
Location:	Montenegro
Specialty:	High mountains with numerous glacial traces, karst phenomena, the rainiest area in Europe, rare animal and plant species, untouched jungle area, UNESCO World Heritage Site , European Green Belt
Next city:	Herceg Novi , Nikšić and Trebinje
Surface:	190 km²
Founding:	2007
Visitors:	?
	Satellite image
	Nature conservation in Orjen
	i3 i6

The National Park Orjen is a planned national park in Montenegro . It comprises the Orjen Mountains northwest of the Bay of Kotor .

history

The first plans to designate an Orjen National Park go back to 1960. Part of the area has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site of the Bay of Kotor since 1979 . In 2007, the government of Montenegro estimated a total of 19,000 hectares of land for a national park, but implementation has so far not got beyond the bureaucratic procedure. In particular, there is still no scientific documentation. The plan to establish the national park was presented at the 2008 Biodiversity Convention in Bonn .

geography

The Orjen is the only littoral high mountain range of the Dinarides . The mountain body is separated from the surrounding area by an impressive 800 to 1300 meter high steep step to the sea (“mega cliff”) and the glacial shape . As a tectonically raised floe, the Orjen towers over 800 to 900 meters above sea level. The Montenegrin-Herzegovinian karst highlands are 1000 meters above sea level. Relief energy plays a major role in the harsh environment, as the broken clod mountain range, which towers like a clump over the Bay of Kotor , which is erosively cut into the high karst plateau and with a difference of 1894 m between the lowest and highest point. The landscape, strewn with cart fields, contrasts with rich types of vegetation such as the evergreen hardwood forests of the lower layers and the endemic fir and pine forests of the higher areas.

The Orjen covers an area of 400 km² and runs over 25 km from Herzegovina in the west to Montenegro in the east. It is made up of four karst plateaus that are separated by sharp ridges. Three almost parallel ridges collide at Zubački kabao , Orjen's highest point. The plateaus are arranged according to their height from north to south, with the northernmost, the Bijela gora , being shielded from the Mediterranean coast by the Reovačka greda . The other high plateaus are the Krivošije in the east and the Pirina poljana and Vrbanj in the west.

Favored by precipitation and relief, the Orjen was a center of the Pleistocene glaciation of the Balkan Peninsula . In the reservoir of the Orjen Mountains, the annual precipitation increases to over 5000 mm annually. This is also Europe's highest total precipitation, which is more typical for tropical rainforest regions or the monsoon -shaped Eastern Himalayas than for the summer-dry Mediterranean region. In particular, however, the vegetation benefits from the frequent rainfall, because even large-scale high forests are possible on the otherwise dry limestone soil.

climate

Climate diagram Crkvice (1930-1961)

The Orjen National Park is located in the area of the subtropical winter rainy climate with the main rainfall during the mild winter weather, whereby the other seasons are not really dry. After all, 25 percent of the annual precipitation falls during the long and hot summer months, but June, July and August in particular are noticeably drier. Due to the orographic lifting of the air as it flows up to the mountains, the precipitation increases with increasing altitude up to 1900 meters. The average annual rainfall is between 2500 millimeters at sea level and about 6400 millimeters at 1900 meters. The snow in the highlands does not usually stop until November and then accumulates until March or April. The aperitif runs in the high areas until the beginning / middle of June.

The temperature decreases with increasing altitude. The lows are moderate, however, as the park is only about 10 kilometers from the Mediterranean Sea. The average daytime temperatures in the Crkvice area (940 meters above sea level) are -3.2 to 23.9 ° C over the year. Temperatures are higher on average at the lower altitudes below around 500 meters. In Crkvice daily maximum temperatures of up to 34 ° C are reached in the course of a year. At altitudes above around 1500 meters, the temperatures on hot and dry summer days are moderate due to frequent summer thunderstorms and snow, which can occur until June. A dangerous mix of parched vegetation, low humidity and thunderstorms often leads to fires caused by lightning strikes.

Average monthly temperatures and precipitation for Crkvice at an altitude of 940 m

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
Max. Temperature ( ° C )	4.9	5.5	8.1	12.0	16.8	20.5	23.8	23.9	20.3	16.0	10.4	6.5	O	14.1
Min. Temperature (° C)	-3.2	-2.6	-0.3	3.4	7.3	10.1	12.4	12.2	9.6	5.7	2.0	-1.5	O	4.6

Precipitation ( mm )	584	474	507	386	204	134	74	142	256	499	720	642	Σ	4,622

Rainy days ( d )	12.4	12.5	11.9	11.8	10.3	8.8	6.3	6.8	6.9	10.0	14.0	14.0	Σ	125.7

Source: Source: «Crkvice Climate (1960-1991)», website of the Montenegro Hydrometeorological Institute

ecology

station	Height [m]	Climate type (according to Köppen )	character	Vegetation type	Precipitation [mm / a]	Snow cover duration
Zubački kabao	1894	Dfsc	perhumid Mediterranean snowy climate	endemic oro-Mediterranean lawn community with Sesleria robusta and Iris orjenii	approx. 6250	approx. 140 days
Crkvice	940	Cfsb	(fs = without summer drought), perhumid Mediterranean mountain climate	hygro- and thermophilic fir-beech forest with relict karst block heaps fir forests	4622	70 days
Risan	0	Cs''a	(s '' = double winter precipitation period), perhumid Mediterranean coastal climate	Exclave of the relictic laurel forest in the Mediterranean with Nerium oleander and Laurus nobilis	3500	2 days

* Ecological-meteorological table with parameters of the climate on a 15 km long transect between the mountain foot on the Mediterranean Sea and the highest mountain peak in Orjen.