The Skat ( bg, Скът, ; also

transliterated Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another that involves swapping letters (thus ''trans-'' + '' liter-'') in predictable ways, such as Greek → , Cyrillic → , Greek → the digraph , Armenian → or ...

''Skǎt'' or ''Skut''; la, Scitus) is a river in the western Danubian Plain of northern

Bulgaria Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Mac ...

and a right tributary of the

Ogosta The Ogosta ( bg, Огоста , Latin: ''Augusta''), is the largest river in Northwestern Bulgaria, a right tributary of the Danube. It originates at Chiprovska Mountain, 2,168 meters high section of the Western Balkan Mountains, at about an altitu ...

. The Skat takes its source from the Rechka area near the Veslets mountain in

Vratsa Province Vratsa Province ( bg, Област Враца ''Oblast Vraca'', former name Vraca okrug) is a Bulgarian province located in the northwestern part of the country, between Danube river in the north and Stara Planina mountain in the south. It is n ...

, part of the western Fore-

Balkan Mountains The Balkan mountain range (, , known locally also as Stara planina) is a mountain range in the eastern part of the Balkan Peninsula in Southeastern Europe. The range is conventionally taken to begin at the peak of Vrashka Chuka on the border be ...

, north of the Manyashki Vrah peak. It goes round the Borovan hill from the west and runs through a shallow gorge near Ohoden. From that point on, it has low banks and mostly flows through plain terrain with a number of

meander A meander is one of a series of regular sinuous curves in the channel of a river or other watercourse. It is produced as a watercourse erodes the sediments of an outer, concave bank ( cut bank) and deposits sediments on an inner, convex ban ...

s. The Skat is 510 metres wide, with a sand-covered bed. Its valley is asymmetrical, as the right bank is normally steeper than the left one. Before the construction of the atomic power station in Kozlodui the Skat flew into Danube directly. Then the Ogosta's course has been altered to free space for the atomic station separate canals and now the smaller Skat flows into the Ogosta at Saraevo, west of

Oryahovo Oryahovo ( bg, Оряхово ) is a port city in northwestern Bulgaria, part of Vratsa Province. It is located in a hilly area on the right bank of the Danube, just east of the mouth of the river Ogosta, a few more kilometres downstream fro ...

. The Skat is 140 kilometres long and has a

drainage basin A drainage basin is an area of land where all flowing surface water converges to a single point, such as a river mouth, or flows into another body of water, such as a lake or ocean. A basin is separated from adjacent basins by a perimeter, ...

of 1,070 square kilometres. Its main tributaries are the Barzina and the Greznitsa. The river is used for

irrigation Irrigation (also referred to as watering) is the practice of applying controlled amounts of water to land to help grow crops, landscape plants, and lawns. Irrigation has been a key aspect of agriculture for over 5,000 years and has been dev ...

and one reservoir has been built along it, the Ohoden Reservoir.

References

* Rivers of Bulgaria Landforms of Vratsa Province {{Bulgaria-river-stub