The Dobra () is a

river A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases, a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of wate ...

located mostly in the

Karlovac County Karlovac County ( hr, Karlovačka županija) is a county in central Croatia, with the administrative center in Karlovac. The city of Karlovac is a fort from the times of the Military Frontier. It was built as a six-side star fort in the 16th cen ...

in the Republic of

Croatia , image_flag = Flag of Croatia.svg , image_coat = Coat of arms of Croatia.svg , anthem = "Lijepa naša domovino"("Our Beautiful Homeland") , image_map = , map_caption = , capit ...

. 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 popular etymology, analogical reformation, reanalysis, morphological reanalysis or etymological reinterpretation) is a change in a word or phrase resulting from the replacement of an unfamiliar form by a more famili ...

. 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 Fo ...

, meaning ‘water’, Illyrian δυβρις () ‘deep’ or

Old Slavonic Old Church Slavonic or Old Slavonic () was the first Slavic literary language. Historians credit the 9th-century Byzantine missionaries Saints Cyril and Methodius with standardizing the language and using it in translating the Bible and other ...

dъbrь (, ) also ‘deep’ or ‘valley’. Dobra rises in Gorski Kotar near

Skrad Skrad is a municipality in the Primorje-Gorski Kotar County in western Croatia. There are 1,062 inhabitants, with 97% Croats (2011). See also *Zeleni Vir Hydroelectric Power Plant Zeleni Vir Hydroelectric Power Plant is a hydroelectric power ...

and Ravna Gora, where it flows first to the north and then turns to the east. It flows past

Vrbovsko Vrbovsko ( sr-cyr, Врбовско) is a town in western Croatia, situated at the far east of the mountainous region of Gorski Kotar in the Primorje-Gorski Kotar County; on its 280 square kilometers area, Vrbovsko features 60 settlements and a t ...

, to the southeast into the city of

Ogulin Ogulin () is a town in north-western Croatia, in Karlovac County. It has a population of 7,389 (2021) (it was 8,216 in 2011), and a total municipal population of 12,251 (2021). Ogulin is known for its historic stone castle, known as Kula, and the ...

, 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 la, Colapis in Roman times; hu, Kulpa) river, a right tributary of the Sava, forms a natural border between north-west Croatia and southeast Slovenia. It is long, with its border part having a length of and t ...

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, i ...

, and finally flows into the Kupa north of

Karlovac Karlovac () is a city in central Croatia. According to the 2011 census, its population was 55,705. Karlovac is the administrative centre of Karlovac County. The city is located on the Zagreb- Rijeka highway and railway line, south-west of Zagre ...

. The Dobra river is rich in

ichthyofauna Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Approximately 95% of li ...

and ornithofauna. 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 Gojak Hydroelectric Power Plant is a hydroelectric power plant on river Dobra, near the town of Ogulin, in Karlovac County, Croatia. Its total capacity is 55.5 MW. The Gojak Hydroelectric Power Plant is a high pressure diversion plant which har ...

, a

hydroelectric Hydroelectricity, or hydroelectric power, is electricity generated from hydropower (water power). Hydropower supplies one sixth of the world's electricity, almost 4500 TWh in 2020, which is more than all other renewable sources combined and ...

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 generation of electric power. Power stations are generally connected to an electrical grid. Many pow ...

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 (''Ogulinska Dobra'' in Croatian) is a typical torrential water with sudden and big changes in

volume flow In physics and engineering, in particular fluid dynamics, the volumetric flow rate (also known as volume flow rate, or volume velocity) is the volume of fluid which passes per unit time; usually it is represented by the symbol (sometimes ). I ...

, while the average slope decline is 1.4%. A smaller river Kamačnik flows into Dobra near

. Until 1957 Dobra was disappearing in Đula's pit, a huge pit 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 A lake is an area filled with water, localized in a basin, surrounded by land, and distinct from any river or other outlet that serves to feed or drain the lake. Lakes lie on land and are not part of the ocean, although, like the much larger ...

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.

References

Rivers of Croatia Landforms of Karlovac County {{Croatia-river-stub