Regional and interurban infrastructure in karst areas - conflicts and possible solutions

Karst aquifers are very important drinking-water sources in Mediterranean area, so is the situation in the Croatia, where is the half of the country built from these very vulnerable mainly carbonate rocks. Catchments of the main springs are very extensive, in some cases more than 1000 km2, and practically is impossible to avoid the conflict situations which can be rised in locating and construction of different infrastructural objects as motorways, railroads, oil pipelines etc, or as a consequences of urban development in the area. In such situation protection of drinking-water sources are very complicate and needs proper engineering solutions based on high level hydrogeological knowledge. In this paper will be presented some engineering experiences from Croatian karst areas, which can be interesting for the karst areas in other countries, primarily in Mediterranean and also for other karst areas around the world.