Lake Bicaz

How it formed

The dam was built between 1950 and 1960 and is a concrete gravity dam, standing in an area of siliceous sandstone. The lake stretches from north-west to south-east and has many lateral arms, the most important of them along the Bistricioara river. Two secondary reservoirs, at Tașca and at Izvorul Muntelui, divert water from the Bicaz and Izvorul Muntelui rivers into the main lake.

History

The lake was made as part of the damming of the Bistrița for hydroelectric power: work on the dam began in 1950, and it was completed in 1960.

Nature

Bicaz is the largest artificial lake on the inland waters of Romania, and it has been an aquatic nature reserve since about 2000. Its level rises and falls every year, and that has shaped what lives in it. In its first years the lake held 25 fish species. There were 19 by the early 1970s, and a survey in 2005 found only 10.

Bleak made up more than half of the fish caught in that survey, followed by perch and roach, with smaller numbers of gudgeon, chub, nase, rainbow trout and bream. Danube salmon, whitefish and grayling, all recorded in the lake’s early years, were not found. Trout is the most valued catch, and fresh trout is sold near Potoci, on the shore. The biological research station there drew a visit from Jacques Cousteau in 1984.