How Bulgarian Municipalities Plan for Disasters—An Analysis of the Availability and Content of the Municipal Disaster Protection Plans

Abstract

This study examines how Bulgarian municipalities plan for disasters through the analysis of their municipal disaster protection plans’ public availability. These documents are legally mandated and form the cornerstone of local prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery. The research combined a systematic search for publicly accessible plans across all 265 municipalities with a detailed review of the plans from the 27 regional centers. A GIS dataset was constructed linking municipalities with plan availability, population data, and direct links to documents. The analysis revealed that while most municipalities publish disaster-related documentation, accessibility remains uneven and many documents are hidden in poorly organized websites or uploaded as scanned image-only PDFs, limiting usability. Structural analysis of regional center plans showed that all cover the legally required hazards of earthquake, flood, and nuclear or radiological accidents, but the depth, clarity, and inclusion of additional risks vary widely. Only a few municipalities integrate climate change and emerging hazards, while most remain focused on traditional risks. The findings point to a gap between formal compliance with the Disaster Protection Act and effective public-oriented disaster planning.

1. Introduction

Bulgaria is exposed to many natural and man-made risks that have a significant impact on the population, infrastructure and economy. According to the Bulgarian legislation and the many strategic documents developed on the topic, such as the National Disaster Risk Profile (NDRP) [1], the most serious threats are related to floods, earthquakes and landslides, but significant risks also arise from forest fires, droughts, extreme heat, industrial and transport accidents, as well as nuclear or radiation incidents. The development of the NDRP took part between 2018 and 2022 and included gathering disaster-related data back to the beginning of the XX century. It showed that for the period 2000–2020, the reported economic losses from disasters amounted to over 1.75 billion euros, with floods, storms and landslides having the largest share. The national disaster risk management system in the country is based on the Disaster Protection Act, which defines protection planning at three levels—national, regional and municipal. Disaster protection plans are prepared in parts for each hazard specific to the respective territory. The parts dedicated to earthquake, flood and nuclear or radiation accidents are mandatory. They contain risk analysis, prevention and preparedness measures, response and recovery mechanisms, as well as coordination schemes for communication between institutions.

Despite the clear regulatory framework, the public availability, content and structure of municipal disaster protection plans remain poorly researched. These plans are a fundamental tool for prevention, preparedness, response and recovery, as well as for coordination between institutions. The question of how accessible these plans are to citizens and what their content is could be defined as essential. Public access to strategic documents at a local level is a prerequisite for transparency, active participation of society and building a culture of prevention. The content and structure of the documents is crucial for the effectiveness of risk management, because they determine the scope of the hazards included, the available resources and the response mechanisms.

Free access to strategic documents at a local level is a key condition for effective risk management and for implementing the principles of good governance in modern countries. Transparency and accountability of institutions are among the main factors for increasing public trust and for involving citizens in the planning and response processes. This is especially important in the context of a changing climate, when emergencies occur more frequently. The European Union consistently supports open access to information and public participation in the development and implementation of policies, including in the field of disaster risk reduction [2]. Publishing municipal disaster protection plans online is not only a regulatory obligation. It is also a tool for building a culture of prevention and for sharing responsibility between institutions and citizens [3].

In recent years, many studies have explored how disaster risk reduction and spatial data infrastructures can work together to improve preparedness and response. Researchers have used GIS to map and analyze hazards, to support urban planning, and to improve decision-making in risk management [4,5]. Spatial and urban planning are increasingly viewed as key tools for disaster prevention and climate adaptation [6,7]. Other works have examined the use of Web-GIS and digital platforms to increase public access and transparency in disaster planning [8]. At the same time, several reviews note that there are still gaps between the availability of spatial data and its use in local planning [9,10]. These findings confirm that the problem of integrating risk reduction, governance, and digital access is not unique to Bulgaria, but part of a wider challenge shared across Europe and beyond.

Although this study focuses on Bulgaria, the challenges identified are not unique to the national context. Many Central and Eastern European countries share comparable administrative structures, exposure to multiple hazards, and difficulties in ensuring public access to disaster-related information. Research from Romania, for example, highlights that despite progress in spatial data and risk mapping, the integration of such data into municipal planning and public communication remains inconsistent [11,12]. Similar issues have been reported in other Southeast European countries, where disaster risk reduction frameworks exist but are often fragmented and weakly connected to local governance mechanisms [3]. Consequently, the Bulgarian case reflects a broader regional pattern in which the principles of digital governance and public participation are recognized in policy but only partially realized in practice.

The principles guiding disaster risk reduction in Europe are strongly influenced by the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030 [3], which highlights governance, prevention, and community participation as core priorities. These ideas are reflected in the EU Civil Protection Mechanism [13] and in the Union’s Strategy on Climate Adaptation [14], which both call for stronger local capacities and integrated risk management. Within this context, national and municipal plans are expected to combine prevention, preparedness, and communication with citizens, making transparency and accessibility essential parts of disaster governance. Disaster risk management in Bulgaria is regulated by the Disaster Protection Act [15], which defines the responsibilities of national, regional, and municipal authorities and requires the preparation of disaster protection plans that address earthquakes, floods, and nuclear or radiological accidents as mandatory hazards that need to be mentioned in all the plans issued by the authorities.

The question of public accessibility to disaster protection plans is closely related to the broader framework of digital governance and e-government worldwide. In the European context, open access to public information and the digital transformation of local administrations are key elements of good governance and citizen participation. Studies on e-government in Central and Eastern Europe show that while digital portals have improved transparency, many municipalities still lack the technical and human capacity to maintain up-to-date and user-friendly platforms [16,17]. This situation directly affects the visibility and accessibility of strategic documents such as disaster protection plans, which should be available as part of a functioning online information environment.

Despite progress in the national digitalization policy, many smaller municipalities in Bulgaria still need improvement. Their official websites often have limited functionalities, outdated design and lack up-to-date information, including a lack of strategic documents. This creates difficulties not only for citizens and businesses, but also for institutions that rely on transparency and coordination in risk management. Insufficient digital infrastructure and limited resources at the local level lead to serious gaps. In the modern context, where access to strategic information online is considered a basic requirement, these weaknesses especially related to spatial data stand out even more clearly [18]. According to the Bulgarian Disaster Protection Act, disaster protection planning is carried out at the municipal, regional, and national levels (Figure 1), with each level responsible for developing plans that include separate sections for the hazards relevant to the territory, while the municipal mayor, the regional governor, and the Council of Ministers manage and coordinate the implementation of the respective plans—a system that was defined in many other strategic documents [15,19,20].

Figure 1. Procedure for disaster risk planning in Bulgaria.

Recent international research also demonstrates that disaster risk reduction and climate adaptation are increasingly being integrated into urban governance and education, offering a pathway for more resilient futures. Rezvani et al. [21] introduced a Risk-Informed Asset-Centric framework to enhance urban resilience in Portuguese municipalities, showing how local planning can directly support risk mitigation. Sun et al. [22] emphasized the educational dimension, highlighting the role of geography teaching in fostering disaster awareness and resilience from an early age. Another research lead by Ledda [23] proposed a structured approach for embedding climate adaptation into sectoral plans, providing an example of how planning processes can evolve beyond compliance toward proactive integration. Other research papers [24] reviewed global practices of vulnerability and adaptation, stressing the importance of coherent strategies that link local measures to broader climate resilience. These examples illustrate that integrating scientific knowledge, governance innovation, and public engagement can transform disaster planning—an approach that could equally guide future improvements in Bulgaria’s municipal planning system.

This study aims to analyze the public accessibility and structure of municipal disaster protection plans in Bulgaria. To achieve this goal, the following tasks have been set: first, to assess the availability of publicly accessible plans for all 265 municipalities; and second, to examine the basic structure of the documents, focusing on the regional capital cities, the range of risks considered, and the presence of mandatory sections and territory-specific hazards. Beyond documenting availability, the research seeks to contribute to the scientific understanding of how transparency and information management affect local disaster risk governance. From a managerial and planning perspective, the results provide evidence-based insights that can support the improvement of local disaster planning processes, promote standardization, and strengthen alignment with national and European frameworks. Through this approach, the study identifies both strengths and gaps in municipal disaster protection planning and communication in Bulgaria and proposes guidelines for enhancing transparency and resilience at the local level.

2. Data and Methods

2.1. Data Gathering Overview

The study was based on a systematic check of the public accessibility of municipal disaster protection plans for all 265 municipalities in Bulgaria (Figure 2). For each municipality, a manual search was performed on the official website, checking the availability of a plan in the strategic documents section or in other key sections. In some cases, the result was a PDF or Microsoft Word file, a scanned document or a simple web page—during this step of the research, we recorded all the information for the publicly available plans in terms of their accessibility for the ordinary internet user. When a plan was not found directly on the municipality’s website, an additional search was conducted on Google and Bing search engines with the keywords “[name of municipality] disaster protection plan”, “[name of municipality disaster plan” and “[name of municipality] disaster program” in the Bulgarian language. This step revealed files or pages that were otherwise difficult to access by navigating through the municipalities’ websites. Each document found was saved with a direct link in the resulting table.

Figure 2. Methodological framework.

Although the data collection process required a significant amount of manual work, this approach allowed us to verify the actual access to municipal disaster protection plans by ordinary people. Automated solutions or formal requests under the Access to Public Information Act would not reflect how an ordinary citizen would search for and find such documents online. Manual inspection of each municipal website and subsequent search through internet search engines were considered the most reliable way to assess the public accessibility of strategic documents in their practical context.

Based on the collected information, a polygon layer was created in GIS using Eurostat data, containing all municipalities in Bulgaria. Attributes extracted from the manually compiled table were added to each municipality: the presence or absence of a publicly accessible disaster protection plan (yes/no, 1/0), population, and a hyperlink to the document when available. The resulting layer served as the main input for mapping and spatial analysis of the accessibility of strategic documents at the local level, enabling visualization and evaluation of territorial differences in the public availability of disaster protection plans.

To complement the spatial representation, a statistical summary was prepared for the five most populated regions—Sofia (city), Sofia (region), Plovdiv, Varna, and Burgas—illustrating the proportion of municipalities with publicly accessible plans (Table 1). This summary provides a clearer overview of regional disparities and highlights the relative transparency and online presence of local administrations.

Table 1. Availability of municipal disaster protection plans in the five most populated Bulgarian regions (Sofia—city, Sofia—region, Plovdiv, Varna, Burgas). Values reflect a time-specific snapshot based on checks conducted between March and August 2025. The full 265-municipality dataset with URLs and metadata is openly available in the project repository.

Region	Total Municipalities	With Public Plan	% Accessible
Sofia (city)	1	1	100.0%
Sofia (region)	22	18	81.8%
Plovdiv	18	18	100.0%
Varna	12	10	83.3%
Burgas	13	10	76.9%

The full dataset underlying this research—including the table of all 265 Bulgarian municipalities, binary indicators of plan availability, document hyperlinks and geospatial polygon data—has been made publicly accessible via a GitHub repository titled “Bulgarian Municipal Disaster Protection Plans—Data 2025”. This repository also includes a README file, metadata descriptions, and versioning to support transparency and reproducibility.

The publicly available documents for the capitals of the regions (total of 27 cities) were downloaded for further analysis with Python 3.14.0 and ChatGPT 5. Their metadata, structure, file formats and contents were analyzed, and the results were manually double-checked for accuracy or AI hallucinations.

2.2. Analysis Workflow

In addition to the manual review of municipal websites, the content of available disaster protection plans was analyzed using an AI-assisted workflow implemented with ChatGPT-5, which used Python libraries for text extraction, structuring and organization. This hybrid approach allowed for the systematic processing of heterogeneous file formats such as websites, PDF, DOCX and scanned documents.

In the ChatGPT-5 environment, Python libraries such as pdfminer.six and python-docx were used to extract text from the uploaded documents. Additional natural language processing functions were applied to identify section headers, keywords and references to specific hazards and mandatory components of the plan (prevention, response, recovery):

• Question: Which disasters (hazards) are addressed in the plan (earthquake, flood, nuclear/radiation accident are mandatory according to the Bulgarian legislation)?
• Question: Are additional hazards (fires, industrial accidents, landslides, droughts, heatwaves, epidemics, etc.) mentioned?
• Question: Do the plans address climate change („изменение на климата” in the Bulgarian language) or emerging risks?

For scanned or image-based files that were not machine-readable, manual verification and quality review were performed and then they were converted into text documents for further analysis.

The extracted and structured results were manually checked to ensure consistency and accuracy. This workflow combines automation and human review to ensure transparency, repeatability, and interpretive precision in the analysis of a large and diverse set of municipal disaster protection plans.

3. Results

3.1. Plans Availability

The conducted research showed that at the time of the search (March–August 2025), a total of 41 municipalities in Bulgaria did not provide online access to a municipal disaster protection plan (Figure 3). This represents approximately one seventh of all municipalities in the country. According to National Statistics Institute data, the total population in these municipalities amounts to 453,534 people (2024), which clearly highlights the significance of the problem—the lack of access to strategic documents affects almost half a million people of the country’s population.

Figure 3. Results of the conducted research—in red and labeled are visualized the municipalities for which a publicly available disaster protection plan was not found.

If we try to find the reasons for the lack of accessibility, various scenarios may be revealed. In 34 cases, no document is available at all, in one case only an annual plan is published, and in another, only news and an annual plan, but not such an official document as should exist (Table 2). In one municipality, only the annexes were uploaded, without the main plan. In some cases, technical problems are the main obstacle—in one municipality, the page does not open, and in two others, the document itself cannot be loaded.

Table 2. List of plans that have not been found online during the first part of the research.

Municipality	Population (2024)	Area (km2)	Plan Availability	Note
Veliko Tarnovo	76,811	885.10	No	Not available
Zemen	2138	247.03	No	Not available
Polski Trambesh	10,726	463.53	No	Not available
Dolna Mitropolia	16,121	668.24	No	Not available
Nikopol	6548	414.90	No	Not available
Cherven Bryag	22,077	485.86	No	Not available
Isperikh	18,843	402.12	No	Not available
Kameno	9297	354.88	No	Not available
Malko Tarnovo	2558	783.37	No	Not available
Primorsko	6174	350.50	No	Only annual plan is available
Botevgrad	30,478	518.88	No	Not available
Gorna Malina	6252	295.26	No	Not available
Slivnitsa	8644	187.39	No	Not available
Chavdar	1162	70.80	No	Not available
Madzharovo	1774	247.19	No	Not available
Dulovo	23,781	565.55	No	Not available
Svilengrad	20,333	700.32	No	Not available
Stambolovo	6172	276.70	No	Not available
Nedelino	4844	102.25	No	Not available
Rudozem	8362	186.11	No	Not available
Nevestino	1769	439.57	No	Not available
Treklyano	552	257.79	No	Not available
Ardino	11,785	339.67	No	Not available
Kirkovo	20,927	537.20	No	Not available
Krumovgrad	17,584	843.02	No	Not available
Galubovo	10,402	347.93	No	Not available
Opan	2313	257.52	No	Not available
Teteven	17,311	697.14	No	Not available
Omurtag	15,822	400.78	No	Not available
Avren	8188	354.29	No	Not available
Brusartsi	3951	194.63	No	Not available
Varshets	6663	240.32	No	Not available
Dulgopol	11,637	440.86	No	Not available
Medkovets	2988	191.11	No	Not available
Chiprovtsi	2738	284.83	No	Not available
Belovo	7025	346.37	No	Not available
Bregovo	3617	178.13	No	Not available
Makresh	1204	228.71	No	Only news and annual activities are available
Novo selo	2423	107.25	No	Not available
Borovan	4780	210.69	No	Not available
Mezdra	16,760	518.88	No	Not available

The results show a clear dominance of small municipalities among those that do not have a publicly available plan. A significant part of this group are small and mountainous or peripheral municipalities with a population of less than 10,000 inhabitants—examples include Chavdar, Treklyano, Makresh, Bregovo, Nevestino and Zemen. This is consistent with the fact that limited administrative resources and low capacity for supporting electronic services lead to a lack of transparency and online access to strategic documents.

It is interesting that the group also includes larger municipalities. Among them are medium-sized ones with a population of between 20 and 30 thousand people—Svilengrad, Dolna Mitropolia, Botevgrad and Omurtag. The case of the relatively large municipality of Veliko Tarnovo, with a population of about 77 thousand people, which also has not published a public plan, is particularly indicative. This is particularly interesting because it proves that the problem is not limited to the smallest or poorest municipalities but may also have a different type of character.

Regarding the area of the municipalities, there is no clear correlation between the territorial size and the presence of a plan. The group includes both very small municipalities such as Chavdar (71 km²) and Bregovo (178 km²), as well as significantly larger ones such as Malko Tarnovo (783 km²) and Krumovgrad (843 km²). From this we can conclude that the main factor is the administrative and organizational capacity, and not so much the geographical or demographic characteristics of the respective municipality.

Of particular concern is the fact that among the municipalities without a public plan are also those located in areas with high natural risks—such as Svilengrad, Primorsko, Kameno, Nikopol, Rudozem, Ardino and Madzharovo. These territories are vulnerable to floods, landslides and earthquakes, which makes the lack of transparency and access to planning even more problematic. There is a paradox in which it is precisely municipalities with a high-risk profile that find themselves without public preparedness accessible to citizens.

3.2. Plans of Regions Capitals—A Structural Analysis

The collected dataset includes the disaster protection plans of 26 regional centers in Bulgaria. Sofia is the center of two administrative districts, and the only exception with no public plan is Veliko Tarnovo, whose plan was not publicly available at the time of the study. Its absence demonstrates that the problem of limited transparency is not confined to small or resource-constrained municipalities. Even larger administrative centers can fail to provide open and easily accessible planning documents, which highlights inconsistencies in the implementation of national disaster protection policies.

In the case of Sofia, the municipal territory coincides with the region, since the capital is both a municipality and a region.

The analysis shows that all reviewed documents follow the general framework set by the Disaster Protection Act. They traditionally include:

• Legal and institutional basis,
• Description of the risk profile of the municipality,
• Assessment of hazards and possible scenarios,
• Prevention, preparedness, response and recovery measures,
• Coordination and communication structures,
• And annexes related to specific hazards.

The mandatory hazards defined in the disaster protection law (earthquake, flood, nuclear or radiation accident) are presented in each regional center’s plan, although the way they are presented differs. In some municipalities they appear as annexes within a single consolidated plan, while in others they are published as separate documents. Many municipalities also include annexes or sections for industrial accidents, fires, landslides, snow and ice storms, extreme winds and storms, epidemics and hazardous materials. Coastal municipalities (Burgas, Varna) add risks related to the Black Sea, such as storm surges and oil spills. River municipalities (Ruse, Silistra) describe risks related to the Danube River.

There are variations in the format and style of the documents:

• Integrated plans consolidate all hazards in a single document (e.g., Montana, Pleven, Kyustendil).
• Separate hazard-specific plans are in Sofia, Vidin, Stara Zagora and Burgas.
• The programming documents (Razgrad, Gabrovo) look beyond the operational response and present long-term strategies for risk reduction, climate change adaptation and building resilience.
• Older plans (e.g., Silistra, Lovech) are more descriptive and focused on cataloguing risks, while newer documents (Razgrad 2026–2030, Burgas, Sofia) reflect an effort to align with international frameworks such as the Sendai Framework and the EU Civil Protection Mechanism.

In terms of usability, the documents vary greatly. Some are modern Word or PDF files, while others are scanned images with limited functionality. Maps, tables and appendices are included inconsistently. This shows progress in some municipalities towards strategic and accessible planning but also shows persistent gaps in standardization and digital accessibility.

A considerable number of municipalities still rely on scanned documents. These are essentially images of paper plans, sometimes of poor quality, which are uploaded as PDF files. Such files cannot be searched, text cannot be copied, and navigation is difficult. They often contain dozens or even hundreds of pages, forcing the user to scroll manually:

• Pleven—several separate PDFs (Flood, Fire, Earthquake, etc.) are scans, with no searchable text.
• Plovdiv—the full municipal disaster plan is a scanned PDF, very difficult to navigate.
• Vidin—most hazard-specific documents (general plan, floods, earthquakes, industrial, nuclear, snow/ice) are scanned images.
• Silistra—the 2017 plan is also a scanned PDF, very large and image-based.
• Sofia-grad—although some parts are newer, several annexes (e.g., nuclear, earthquake) are shared as scanned PDFs.
• Stara Zagora—the hazard-specific documents (floods, radiation, fires, etc.) are also scanned files.

The scanned files are not only inconvenient for citizens but also prevent text search, machine analysis, and accessibility (for example screen readers cannot read them). This highlights a digital divide: some municipalities treat online publication as genuine public access, while others treat it as a formality—uploading scanned papers with minimal usability.

3.3. Plans’ Content

The analysis of the municipal disaster protection plans was guided by a structured set of research questions defined in the Data and Methods section. These questions focused on identifying the types of hazards addressed in the plans, the inclusion of additional or emerging risks, and the presence of climate change considerations. No other questions were added to this list, because of the risks of AI hallucinations and the need to manually check the results for further verification.

Each plan was reviewed manually and, where possible, through automated text extraction and analysis using Python in ChatGPT 5. The following subsections present the summarized findings from this content analysis, reflecting both the common structure imposed by national legislation and the considerable variation in the level of detail and contextualization across municipalities. The results shown below also include the scanned PDF files that were converted into text documents.

• Question: Which disasters (hazards) are addressed in the plan (earthquake, flood, nuclear/radiation accident are mandatory according to the Bulgarian legislation)?

ChatGPT5: All analyzed municipal disaster protection plans include the three hazards that are mandatory under the Bulgarian Disaster Protection Act: earthquakes, floods, and nuclear or radiological accidents. This demonstrates a consistent national adherence to the required structure and minimum content of local plans, even in municipalities where specific hazards (such as nuclear incidents) are not locally relevant. The uniform inclusion of these hazards suggests that most municipalities rely on a centrally defined template provided by the General Directorate for Fire Safety and Civil Protection, ensuring procedural compliance but leaving limited flexibility for integrating locally specific risks or emerging threats such as droughts or heatwaves.

2.

Question: Are additional hazards (fires, industrial accidents, landslides, droughts, heatwaves, epidemics, etc.) mentioned?

ChatGPT5: In addition to the mandatory hazards required by national legislation, most municipal disaster protection plans mention a wider range of risks, including fires, industrial accidents, landslides, severe winter conditions, and public health emergencies. However, these additional hazards are not uniformly addressed. In many cases, they are only briefly listed without detailed assessment, preventive measures, or mapping of vulnerable areas. The analysis shows that while fires and industrial accidents are widely included, droughts, heatwaves, and epidemics—increasingly relevant under changing climate conditions—are rarely elaborated beyond a short reference. This indicates a largely formalistic approach to hazard inclusion, where additional risks are acknowledged but not integrated into operational planning or local adaptation strategies.

3.

Question: Do the plans address climate change („изменение на климата” in the Bulgarian language) or emerging risks?

ChatGPT5: There is almost a complete absence of climate change considerations in municipal disaster protection plans. Although the National Disaster Risk Profile and Bulgaria’s Climate Change Adaptation Strategy provide a policy framework for integrating climate-related risks, most local plans continue to focus on traditional hazards such as floods and earthquakes. Only isolated references to climate change were identified, often limited to general statements without supporting data, local assessments, or adaptation measures. This gap underscores the need for a unified national model that explicitly mandates the inclusion of climate risks such as heatwaves and droughts, ensuring coherence between national guidance and local implementation. None of the references are accompanied by specific data, assessments, or adaptation measures. The limited and descriptive nature of these mentions highlights the gap between national strategies addressing climate adaptation and their implementation in local disaster protection planning.

4. Discussion

The study revealed results that have not been conducted in the country before—the first stage revealed uneven accessibility of disaster protection plans across the country. Many municipalities publish their plans online, but others either do not provide them at all or share only partial documents. Even when available documents were found, their location on municipal websites was often unclear, hidden deep in “documents”, “strategies” or “plans” sections, making them difficult to find by the average citizen, which was the main objective of the study. This raises concerns about the effectiveness of legal requirements for public access. If citizens cannot easily find or read them, their role in building community preparedness cannot be fulfilled.

The second stage focused on regional centers, which provided a more detailed picture of how municipalities structure their disaster planning. Here, the analysis showed that although all regional centers comply with the minimum legal requirements of the Disaster Protection Act, covering earthquakes, floods and nuclear/radiological accidents, there are significant differences in the quality, structure and usability of the documents. An exception to this is the municipal center Veliko Tarnovo, for which no plan was found and analyzed. The lack of a public plan for Veliko Tarnovo shows that gaps in accessibility are not limited to small or rural municipalities but also affect large urban centers.

When carrying out a comparative analysis, some major differences can be seen in the available documents. The first important point is the difference in the depth of the content. Some municipalities (e.g., Vidin, Silistra, Pleven) present long, descriptive plans with hazard-specific annexes, but without strong links to prevention, resilience or community participation. Others (e.g., Razgrad, Burgas, Sofia) provide more modern documents with specific operational objectives, integration with national and European frameworks and recognition of climate change as a risk multiplier. This difference shows that although the law establishes a baseline, the practical quality of planning depends strongly on local administrative capacity and initiative.

The issue of outdated file formats can also be brought to the fore. A significant number of municipalities still rely on scanned PDF files with images only, which are essentially digital photos of paper plans. Examples include Pleven, Plodov, Vidin, Silistra, Sofia and Stara Zagora. These files cannot be searched, the text cannot be copied and navigation is difficult. For the average citizen, this means that the very documents that should tell them what to do in an emergency are cumbersome and often practically unusable. They reproduce the limitations of paper in an online environment, rather than exploiting the advantages of digital publishing. Municipalities such as Razgrad, Gabrovo, Vratsa, Haskovo and Kardzhali provide modern, fully searchable documents that are more in line with the principles of open government and digital governance. The coexistence of these two approaches illustrates the uneven pace of digitalization across the country.

In the context of digital governance, the accessibility and usability of strategic documents are a direct indicator of institutional transparency and accountability. Municipal disaster protection plans are administrative tools as well as communication tools between authorities and citizens. When these plans are published as scanned images rather than as searchable digital documents, they reproduce the limitations of paper in an online environment. This goes against the principles of e-governance and open data, which aim to make public information usable, interoperable and inclusive. From a resilience perspective, the capacity of communities to anticipate and respond to crises depends not only on infrastructure or response mechanisms, but also on the ability of citizens to access and understand preparedness information. Digital accessibility is increasingly becoming a practical component of resilience—a way to translate institutional preparedness into community awareness and empowerment.

The analysis showed structural differences in the organization of the plans. Some municipalities publish one integrated plan with annexes for different hazards (e.g., Montana, Kyustendil, Pleven), while others (Sofia, Vidin, Stara Zagora, Burgas) issue separate documents for each hazard. Integrated plans offer a comprehensive view but tend to be very long and difficult to navigate. Separate hazard-specific documents are easier to work with by specialists but fragment the information for the public.

Limited inclusion of climate change and new types of risks, which are increasingly relevant nowadays, was also noted. The majority of documents remain focused on the “classic” hazards of earthquake, flood, fire, industrial accidents and snowstorms. Only a few municipalities, most notably Razgrad with its program for the period 2026–2030, explicitly integrate climate change, extreme weather conditions and long-term sustainability into their planning. This is a significant difference compared to international frameworks such as the Sendai Framework, which emphasize the importance of anticipating emerging risks and integrating climate adaptation into disaster risk reduction.

5. Conclusions

This study analyses the public accessibility and structure of municipal disaster protection plans in Bulgaria. The main results showed that although all regional centers have plans and most municipalities publish at least some form of disaster documentation, accessibility remains uneven. Documents are often hidden in poorly organized websites or published as scanned images only, which are practically unusable for the average citizen. The structure of the plans varies considerably. Some municipalities rely on a single integrated plan with annexes, others publish disaster-specific documents, and a small number have adopted forward-looking programmatic approaches. It is also evident that the majority of plans remain focused on the “classical” hazards of earthquake, flood and fire, with limited attention to climate change, heat waves, droughts and other emerging risks. Some municipalities (e.g., Razgrad, Burgas and Sofia) make efforts to align with EU and international frameworks, but many others remain in a descriptive, compliance-oriented planning regime. Bulgaria has established a national system of local disaster protection plans, which is a solid institutional foundation. There are numerous documents, templates and instructions on how this type of documentation should be created and maintained in municipalities. However, without modernization, harmonization and greater attention to usability, these plans cannot fully fulfill their purpose of guiding communities and strengthening resilience.

It should be noted that the analysis represents a snapshot of the situation between March and August 2025. Municipal websites and plans are subject to updates, revisions, and changes in structure or accessibility over time. Therefore, the presented results reflect the publicly available information during only this period, providing a baseline for future comparative assessments.

There is a clear need for a harmonized national template that goes beyond the minimum legal requirements and provides a clear structure, content guidelines and digital standards. This would reduce fragmentation, ensure that all municipalities are addressing a common set of hazards and facilitate the comparison and use of documents. Local disaster protection plans should systematically include climate-related risks, such as heat waves, droughts and extreme storms, as well as new hazards related to technological change. Integrating disaster risk reduction with climate adaptation would bring Bulgarian municipalities closer to the priorities of the Sendai Framework and the EU Civil Protection Mechanism. The uneven quality of the plans also reflects differences in administrative capacity. Smaller municipalities clearly lack the resources and expertise to update their plans and present them in accessible formats. National training, sample texts and shared digital tools could help raise the common standard and reduce inequalities between large and small municipalities. Municipal plans should not remain isolated documents but should be clearly linked to regional and national strategies, as well as to European initiatives for disaster risk reduction. This would ensure coherence, facilitate access to funding and help municipalities benefit from cross-border cooperation and shared experience.

Although Bulgaria already possesses a national analytical framework through the National Disaster Risk Profile (developed under the Ministry of Interior, with detailed GIS-based mapping for all major hazards), its methodologies and outputs are not yet systematically integrated into local-level planning. The creation of a unified national model for municipal disaster protection plans could ensure that these existing datasets and methods are used consistently across the country. Such a model should clearly require the inclusion of climate change-related risks—particularly heatwaves and droughts—alongside traditional hazards.

Bulgarian municipalities have laid the foundations for disaster risk management at the local level through the preparation of disaster protection plans. The challenge now is to move from formal compliance to functional and future-oriented planning. This requires better templates, modern digital formats, broader risk coverage and stronger integration with national and international frameworks.