Hidrológiai Közlöny, 2017 (97. évfolyam)
2017 / 3. szám - MANAGING WATER QUALITY (ONGOING PROJECTS AND FUTURE CHALLENGES) - Heilmann Diana - Fehér János: Strengthening cooperation between river basin management planning and flood risk prevention to enhance the status of the waters of the Tisza River Basin (JOINTISZA)
39 Diana Heilmann and János Fehér: Strengthening cooperation between river basin management planning and flood risk prevention... into the management plan (synthesis part) and synergies will also be ensured with the characterisation part and flood issues of the project. As an important notion, the first ITRBMP highlighted that climate change and its hydrological impacts (droughts and flash-floods) should be fully addressed in decisionmaking to ensure the sustainability of ecosystems. The management objective to progress towards a harmonised implementation of the WFD and the Flood Directive was set. In line with the objective, an important WP aims to develop a strategic paper on the Tisza River Basin Management Plan (ITRBMP) and the Tisza Flood Risk Management Plan (TFRMP) integration process in WP5. Outcomes of WP5 will also be integrated into the synthesis part. The outcomes of the technical WPs on the characterisation of surface water, water quantity issues and flood issues will be integrated into the ICPDR GIS database. As it was already indicated in the above paragraphs, the synthesis part (WP6) is one of the core elements of the project aiming to consolidate the results of the work packages of the characterisation of surface water, water quantity and flood issues (WP3, WP4 and WP5) and harmonize the recommended joint programme of measures. Moreover, it also includes a pilot activity on drought management in light of the climate change. This pilot activity is linked to the flood activities. The public participation activities, as one of the key supporting processes in the development of the ITRBMP will also be unique and important elements of the synthesis (WP6) package. The Public Involvement and Participation Strategy (PIPS) will be one of the outputs of the project, and will cover the aspects of communication, information access and public participation related to the development of the updated ITRBMP. It will aim to ensure that engagement will take place at points where it can influence the planning, as well as to create a supportive social environment for the implementation of the Joint Programme of Measures (JPM). Obligatory elements of the project are the management and communication tasks. INFO BOX: Number of partners: 17 (10 ERDF, 2 IPA and 5 ASPs). Project Budget: 2,254,126.80 € Project Duration: January 2017 - June 2019. Project Lead Partner: General Directorate of Water Management-Hungary (OVF) Project Manager: Mr Balázs Horváth Contact Details: jointisza@ovf.hu Project co-funded by the European Union through the Danube Transnational Programme (DTP) Official website of the project: www.interreg-danube.eu/jointisza PROJECT CONSORTIUM AND TARGET GROUPS The partnership is composed of four levels of the most relevant institutions: national ministries and water management administrations for ensuring the implementation of measures on national level (policy level); water research institutes for professional work (operational level); international organizations for overall controlling results and outputs (control level) and different stakeholder institutions for transparency (social level). To address unique and complex issues of water management in the Tisza River Basin (such as high sensitivity to contamination, extreme water regime, which means water scarcity and flood events alternating within short time periods, many artificial and heavily modified water bodies, weak urban hydrology, unique water-dependent flora and fauna, etc.), international cooperation is needed and the involvement of all five countries of the Tisza River Basin in the work is crucial. The Tisza countries are aware of these complex problems and many relevant institutions from the Tisza countries are ready to be involved in the joint work- for the development of a river basin management plan for the basin with the leadership of the Hungarian General Directorate for Water Management. An important aspect of the project is that the transparency of available transboundary and basin-wide knowledge is ensured by the involvement of international organisations, which are important partners to the project such as the International Commission for Protection of the Danube River (ICPDR), the Global Water Partnership for Central and Eastern Europe (GWP CEE), the World Wide Fund for Nature, Hungary (WWF Hungary), and the Regional Environmental Centre for Central and Eastern Europe (REC). The UNEP ViennaSecretariat of the Carpathian Convention (UNEP Vienna-SCC) is involved in the project as an associated strategic partner. It is important to identify who to address the results to and who will the beneficiary of the project outcomes be. The project involves four types of target groups: national water administrations, water research institutes, international organisations and other interested stakeholders and NGOs. The project will be carried out by of the joint action of the five countries (UA, RO, SK, HU, RS) that share the TRB. The bridge between stakeholders will be ensured via the ICPDR Tisza Group and EUSDR PA4 platforms, where information will be transferred from the experts’ operational level to policy level. The management and communication plan will ensure the wide-range involvement of target groups. Moreover, the pilot actions will give specific platform for information sharing and learning interactions. As the result of the transnational cooperation, the main output of the project is the final, updated Integrated Tisza RBM Plan, which already includes the main aspects of the Flood Risk Directive.
