Trebišnjica River

Trebišnjica
Trebišnjica River
Country	Bosnia and Herzegovina
Basin features
River mouth	Neretva River and Adriatic Sea
Basin size	The Neretva with Trebišnjica
Physical characteristics
Length	98 km (61 mi)

Trebišnjica (Serbian Cyrillic: Требишњица) is a river in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It used to be a sinking river, 96.5 km (60.0 mi) long above the ground. With a total length of 187 km (116 mi) above and under the ground, it is one of the longest sinking rivers in the world.

As it flows in an area of karst (limestone), the Trebišnjica actually represents a very complex system of the above and underground streams. It originates in Bosnia and Herzegovina from two streams from the Lebršnik and Čemerno mountains:

The river shortly re-appears in the Fatničko Polje (Field of Fatnica) under the name of Fatnička reka (River of Fatnica), only to sink again after a short flow above the ground.

After a total underground flow of some 30 km (19 mi), the waters of the sinking Fatnička reka re-appear as a series of very powerful cave springs near the town of Bileća, which are joined into one river, the Trebišnjica, the most important river in eastern Hercegovina. The river flows to the south, through the depression of Miruša. On the southernmost part of the depression, the river is dammed by the Grancarevo Dam at the village of Gornje Grančarevo and completely flooded upstream by the artificial Lake Bileća. Nearly all of the eastern bank of the lake belongs to Montenegro.

The Trebišnjica turns west between the villages of Donje Grnčarevo and Lastva into the Trebinjsko polje (Field of Trebinje), being dammed once again at the village of Gorica, with a small reservoir. The river continues to the west following the southern slopes of Bjelasnica mountain, through the town of Trebinje and villages of Dražin Do, Tvrdoš, Gornja Kočela and Donja Kočela, and enters the largest karst field in the Balkans, Popovo Polje (Field of the priest).

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