Bunski kanali
Description
The Buna Channels are a natural phenomenon on the Neretva River, formed by fluvial processes at the point where the Buna River flows into the Neretva, near the village of Buna, south of Mostar, along the M-17 main road Mostar–Čapljina. At this special spot, the entire Neretva flows into a narrow channel just over three meters wide and about 850 meters long, and over a tufa barrier it joins the Buna in a unique scene of tufa waterfalls.
After passing through the channel, the Neretva calms down and widens, taking on a more lowland character. The phenomenon is visible only at extremely low water levels, in the summer period, when dams have reduced the river to its biological minimum. The Buna Channels are a distinctive destination for photo tourism and nature researchers. There are proposals for legal protection of this area.
The meeting of two rivers
The Buna Channels are not just a hydrological curiosity — they are one of the few places where you can reach both banks of a river with your own hands, a river that normally flows hundreds of meters wide.
When the water level of the Neretva drops to its biological minimum, the entire river is squeezed into a gorge-like channel, narrow and blue, stretching for almost a kilometer through the low Herzegovina vegetation. At the end of that channel, Buna quietly flows over a tufa barrier — and there the two rivers embrace into one stream.
A paradise for photographers
The Buna Channels attract more and more visitors every year who come for photography that cannot be done anywhere else in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The contrast between the narrow, dark-green channel and the surrounding meadows of the Neretva field makes every shot striking.
In addition to its photographic value, the site also has exceptional scientific potential — the tufa barriers and fluvial processes shaping this confluence are the subject of research by biologists and geographers. Proposals for legal protection of the area are active, but protection has not yet been formalized.
