The Dobra () is a

river A river is a natural stream of fresh water that flows on land or inside Subterranean river, caves towards another body of water at a lower elevation, such as an ocean, lake, or another river. A river may run dry before reaching the end of ...

located mostly in the

Karlovac County Karlovac County () is a county in central Croatia, with the administrative center in Karlovac. It borders Bosnia and Herzegovina and Slovenia. The city of Karlovac is a fort from the times of the Military Frontier. It was built as a six-side st ...

in the Republic of

Croatia Croatia, officially the Republic of Croatia, is a country in Central Europe, Central and Southeast Europe, on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. It borders Slovenia to the northwest, Hungary to the northeast, Serbia to the east, Bosnia and Herze ...

. It is long and its basin covers an area of . Its name is the feminine form of the Croatian adjective meaning "good" but it is over simplistic

folk etymology Folk etymology – also known as (generative) popular etymology, analogical reformation, (morphological) reanalysis and etymological reinterpretation – is a change in a word or phrase resulting from the replacement of an unfamiliar form by a mo ...

. The river name probably comes from the

Celtic Celtic, Celtics or Keltic may refer to: Language and ethnicity *pertaining to Celts, a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia **Celts (modern) *Celtic languages **Proto-Celtic language *Celtic music *Celtic nations Sports Foot ...

, meaning 'water', Illyrian δυβρις () 'deep' or Old Slavonic dъbrь (, ) also 'deep' or 'valley'. Dobra rises in Gorski Kotar near Skrad and Ravna Gora, where it flows first to the north and then turns to the east. It flows past Vrbovsko, to the southeast into the city of Ogulin, where it becomes an underground stream. It takes a sharp northward turn and rises back to the surface north of Ogulin. It continues to the northeast, past the Lešće spa and a hydroelectric plant (built and in test operation ), running in parallel to the

Kupa The Kupa () or Kolpa ( or ; from in Roman Empire, Roman times; ) river, a right tributary of the Sava, forms a natural border between north-west Croatia and southeast Slovenia. It is long, with a length of serving as the border between Croati ...

and

Mrežnica The Mrežnica () is a river in Karlovac County, Croatia. It is long and its basin covers an area of . Mrežnica is considered special due to its large number of waterfalls, totalling 93. It rises in Kordun, west of Slunj, and flows northwards, ...

, and finally flows into the Kupa north of

Karlovac Karlovac () is a city in central Croatia. In the 2021 census, its population was 49,377. Karlovac is the administrative centre of Karlovac County. The city is located southwest of Zagreb and northeast of Rijeka, and is connected to them via the ...

. The Dobra river is rich in

fish A fish (: fish or fishes) is an aquatic animal, aquatic, Anamniotes, anamniotic, gill-bearing vertebrate animal with swimming fish fin, fins and craniate, a hard skull, but lacking limb (anatomy), limbs with digit (anatomy), digits. Fish can ...

and

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class (biology), class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the Oviparity, laying of Eggshell, hard-shelled eggs, a high Metabolism, metabolic rate, a fou ...

s. The Upper and Lower Dobra river are abundant with fish species: brown and rainbow trout, grayling, chub, barbel, bleak, carp, and tench, all in Upper Dobra, while the Lower Dobra is one of the rare Croatian rivers that has fish species such as sprout, pike, chub, pomfret, and barbel. North of Ogulin, near Gojak, the water of Dobra is harvested for the Gojak Hydroelectric Power Plant, a

hydroelectric Hydroelectricity, or hydroelectric power, is Electricity generation, electricity generated from hydropower (water power). Hydropower supplies 15% of the world's electricity, almost 4,210 TWh in 2023, which is more than all other Renewable energ ...

power plant A power station, also referred to as a power plant and sometimes generating station or generating plant, is an industrial facility for the electricity generation, generation of electric power. Power stations are generally connected to an electr ...

built to utilize the rivers Dobra and

. In 2010 the Lešće hydroelectric power plant started operating on the Lower Dobra section of the river. Two motorway bridges have been built over the Dobra: the Dobra Bridge (A1) and the Dobra Bridge (A6).

Upper Dobra or Ogulin Dobra

Upper Dobra () or Ogulin Dobra () is a typical torrential water with sudden and big changes in volume flow, while the average slope decline is 1.4%. A smaller river Kamačnik flows into Dobra near Vrbovsko. Until 1957 Dobra was disappearing in Đulin ponor, a

ponor A ponor is a natural opening where surface water enters into underground passages; they may be found in Karst topography, karst landscapes where the geology and the geomorphology is typically dominated by porous limestone rock. Ponors can drain s ...

in the center of Ogulin. The Upper Dobra river was diverted into the system of the Hydroelectric power plant Gojak some 1.5 km upstream of Đula's pit, and by doing that an artificial lake Bukovnik was created. From the dam down to Đula's pit the river bed is filled with water that is there only once in a while, whenever there's heavy rainfall which causes the river to overflow the dam.
"Jezero Bukovnik" ("The Bukovnik lake"), www.ogulin.hr, 2012.

History

When the

Vlachs Vlach ( ), also Wallachian and many other variants, is a term and exonym used from the Middle Ages until the Modern Era to designate speakers of Eastern Romance languages living in Southeast Europe—south of the Danube (the Balkan peninsula ...

Gomirje Gomirje is a settlement in north-western Croatia, situated at the far east of the mountainous region of Gorski kotar in the Primorje-Gorski Kotar County. It is part of the Vrbovsko municipality. The population is 343 (as of the 2011 census). H ...

requested a confirmation of their Uskok rights throughout the territory they inhabited in 1605, they listed its boundaries as stretching from Mali Klek – Ustanke (the confluence of the Vitunjčica and the Dobra) – Vrbica – Kamensko – Vrbovsko – Plešivica – Mošenski – Bilek – "Potschovodo" – Topolovica – Okrugljik – Radigojna – Gornji Lazi.

Gallery

Dobra, Ogulin 115702.jpg, At Ogulin Dobra, Ogulin 115353.jpg, Just before Đulin ponor Đulin ponor po zimi.jpg, Đulin ponor

Upper Dobra or Ogulin Dobra

History

Gallery

References

Further reading