Hidrológiai Közlöny, 2017 (97. évfolyam)
2017 / 3. szám - MANAGING WATER QUALITY (ONGOING PROJECTS AND FUTURE CHALLENGES) - Siegel, Hubert: CAMARO-D - a Danube basin approach to land use management
Hubert Siegel: CAMARO-D - a Danube basin approach to land use management 47 In CAMARO-D, with the state-of-the-art application, combined with newly developed innovative best practices in function-oriented sustainable land use management and derived from experiences of pilot activities, the approaches to the various challenges and needs are applied and evaluated. In addition, the LULUCF (Land Use—Land-Use Change—Forestry) task within the COP21 process mentions the efforts in reducing CO 2 with adequate land use adaption measures. With the transnational catchment- based “Land Use Development Plan”, the project shall provide a strategic outline for coordinated, target-oriented land use to guarantee the sustainable protection of water resources and improved flood risk prevention for the Danube river basin, moreover, its operational, country-wide implementation (for example within River Basin Management Plans) is initiated. Concerning EUSDR, CAMARO-D contributes to the Priority Area 4 (To Restore and Maintain the Quality of Waters), especially to • Action 2: to enhance cooperation at sub-basin level by transnational cooperation throughout the project activities and a survey on sub-basin levels within the pilot actions • Action 5: to establish buffer strips; to retain nutrients. This is a typical example for a land use action with the aim of improving water quality, which is reviewed and monitored within the pilot areas resulting in recommendations. • Action 6: to foster an active process of cooperation between authorities through intensive, active stakeholder involvement. Furthermore, CAMARO-D contributes to Priority Area 5 (To Manage Environmental Risks), especially to • -Action 2 (To support wetland and floodplain restoration as an effective means of enhancing flood protection): as wetland and floodplain restoration can reduce flood risks, such measures are reviewed, monitored within the pilot areas and recommendations will result. • -Action 3 (To extend the European Floods Alert System including early warning systems): one Romanian project-partner will develop a warning system and tools for the assessment of extreme events, tested within the pilot areas • -Action 7 (To anticipate impacts of climate change through research): the protection of water resources against impacts of climate change corresponds to one of the specific objectives of the project; results from previous projects dealing with this issue are reviewed and integrated into the guidelines and policy. • -Action 8 (To develop spatial planning ... in the context of climate change and increased threats of floods): adequate land-use management is identified and agreed on in an integrated way, the promotion of sound forest and pasture management, adapted cultivation on slopes of hills, protection of biodiversity, restoration of ecosystems as well as a function-oriented spatial planning are the main topics surveyed within CAMARO-D. A review is followed by recommendations as implementation strategy and finally by integration into the Land- use-development plan. PROJECT CONSORTIUM AND TARGET GROUPS The main target of CAMARO-D, the sustainable protection of water resources and improved flood risk prevention through enhanced land use management in river catchment areas by means of coordinated and harmonized land use activities, calls for improved trans-sector and transnational cooperation between all relevant stakeholders. Therefore, the project requires the extensive participation of different partners, not only in geographic scope but also in diverse scientific and governmental fields of responsibility. Thus, nearly all of the Danube basin countries are involved: Austria, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Germany, Flungary, Romania and Serbia. CAMARO-D partnership consists of 14 financing partners and 9 ASPs from 9 countries, covering nearly the whole geographical scope of the Danube Transnational Programme Area. Selected associated partners (many of them representing governmental institutions) foster the actual implementation of CAMARO-D outcomes, in particular the implementation of the catchment-based “Land Use Development Plan”. All partners have already been involved in several transnational projects, and some of which are integrated into and contribute to the development of EUSDR. The partnership consists of representatives of governmental bodies, water suppliers, research and education institutions, agro-meteorological institutions, environmental agencies and spatial planning institutes acting on local, regional and national levels. Their main fields of expertise are environmental status assessment, elaboration of adequate target-oriented, sustainable land use guiding principles, enhanced flood forecasting, policy and strategy preparation in their respective thematic fields, spatial planning and water supply issues, rural development (guidelines and adapted subsidies), regulation and impact assessment considering the current knowledge about climate change influences and, last but not least, the approval and control of the implementation of forest- and river-related management plans and national / regional strategies and respective legislation. As some project partners also represent target groups of CAMARO-D, their needs and interests serves as a basis for the project idea and project development and are now met by the project content and related outcomes. The governmental institutions (Austrian Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water Management - BMLFUW in Austria; Herman Otto Institute (HOI) in Hungary; National Forest Administration (ROMSILVA) and the National Meteorological Administration of Romania (NMA) in Romania; Executive Forest Agency (EFA) in Bulgaria), together with the Environmental Protection Agency EPAC in Romania are mainly