Detail InformationEdit
Lake Ohrid (Macedonian: Охридско Езеро, Ohridsko Ezero; Albanian: Liqeni i Ohrit) straddles the mountainous border between southwestern Macedonia and eastern Albania. It is one of Europe’s deepest and oldest lakes, preserving a unique aquatic ecosystem with more than 200 endemic species that is of worldwide importance. The importance of the lake was further emphasized when it was declared a World Heritage site by UNESCO in 1979 and when, in 2010, NASA decided to name one of Titan’s lakes after Lake Ohrid.
Lake Ohrid is the deepest lake of the Balkans, with a maximum depth of 288 m (940 ft) and a mean depth of 155 m (508 ft). It covers an area of 358 km² (138 sq mi), containing an estimated 55.4 km³ of water. It is 30.4 km long by 14.8 km wide at its maximum extent with a shoreline length of 87.53 km, shared between Macedonia (56.02 km) and Albania (31.51 km).
The Ohrid and Prespa Lakes belong to a group of Dessaret basins that originated from a geotectonic depression during the Pliocene epoch up to five million years ago on the western side of the Dinaric Alps. Worldwide, there are only a few lakes with similarly remote origins with Lake Baikal and Lake Tanganyika being the most famous. Most other, short-lived lakes have a life span of less than 100,000 years before they are eventually filled up with sediments.
It is believed that in the case of Lake Ohrid this process was delayed by its great depth and small sediment input from its filtered spring inflows. Moreover the Ohrid-Korca graben to the south of the lake is still tectonically active and might compensate sedimentation by subduction. In contrast to Lake Ohrid, Lake Prespa is likely to have turned dry several times in its history, as a result of its karstic underground. In 2008, Macedonian media reported that international experts will be researching the lake in order to determine its age.
Shore habitats are under particular pressure from human activities. Particular threats are the building of tourist facilities directly at the shore, destroying of reed belts to gain agricultural land and intense pollution close to the mouth of tributaries. Although the effects of these human impacts have not been evaluated in detail they are of great concern, as the shallow water sites are particularly rich in endemic bottom fauna and form important spawning grounds for several endemic fish species. Moreover reed belts have great importance for water birds.
Given the population growth over the past 50 years, a particular concern is the potential eutrophication of currently oligotrophic Lake Ohrid from increased pollution. Indeed, sediment cores show a ~3.5 fold increase in phosphorus concentration over the past century. On the one hand, shifts from endemic to common European species, which are better adapted to higher nutrient conditions, have already been observed close to polluted inflows.
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