Hidrológiai Közlöny, 2017 (97. évfolyam)
2017 / 3. szám - MANAGING WATER QUALITY (ONGOING PROJECTS AND FUTURE CHALLENGES) - Sušnik, Andreja - Gregorič, Gregor - Szalai Sándor - Bokal, Sabina: Towards efficient and operative drought management in the Danube region. The DriDanube project - Drought risk in the Danube Region
Andreja Susnik et al: Towards efficient and operative drought management in the Danube region 51 management guidance through the globally coordinated generation of scientific information and sharing best practices and knowledge for integrated drought management”. The Programme has four main components: 1. Investment in regional and national development: to advance regional/transboundary cooperation on drought management by integrating water security and drought resilience into national development planning and decisionmaking processes. 2. Demonstration projects: to develop and implement several innovative solutions for addressing critical drought management challenges. 3. Knowledge and capacity development: to organize regional and national workshops, publish policy briefs, work with the social media and implement other activities in order to raise awareness among water managers, farmers and other water users. 4. Partnership and sustainability: to ensure that the network which facilitates IDMP CEE is strengthened, as well as to organise further fundraising for programmes promoting water security and drought resilience within the framework of sustainable development. Some of the main achievements of the IDMP CEE in the first implementation phase (2013 - 2015) were: • a concise overview of the situation regarding drought management in CEE • guidelines for the preparation of the Drought Management Plan in connection withthe EU Water Framework Directive and global direction • increased capacity of participants to implement the entire process of preparing a Drought Management Plan in their respective countries • a collection of existing drought monitoring indices, methods, and approaches from the CEE region Through this programme, IDMP CEE and DMCSEE partnerships joined forces and started to work on drought management challenges in the region together. During this process, in 2016, a new project (DriDanube) was developed. IDMP CEE continues its mission in the region - “enhancing resilience to drought” and the programme can be viewed at the following link: http://www.gwp.org/en/GWP-CEE/WE-ACT/Projects/ IDMPCEE/ PROJECT OBJECTIVES The main objectives of the DriDanube project are the following: • to increase competence in the Danube region to manage drought-related risks; • to improve drought monitoring by an innovative operational service (Drought User Service); • to unify drought risk assessments based on the Civil Protection Mechanism; • to improve drought emergency response (to change mainly ad-hoc drought response to pro-active response based on risk management procedures). The main results expected from DriDanube are improved drought emergency response and better cooperation among operational services and decision-making authorities in the Danube region. Its primari target groups are: • National Hydrometeorological Services • Emergency response authorities • Non-governmental organizations • Water and Agricultural organisations/chambers • Industries PROJECT PARTNERS Drought is a large-scale natural disaster; therefore, transnational cooperation is especially important. The project partnership consists of the most relevant institutions, which are directly or indirectlyinvolved in drought monitoring and management in 10 countries of the region. There are 15 project partners and 8 associated strategic partners from 7 EU and 3 non-EU countries. Almost half of the project partners are National Hydro- logical and Meteorological Services (NHMSs) from Slovenia, Hungary, Romania, Croatia, Slovakia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro (in the order of partnership). Other partners are research-oriented knowledge centres with strong end user outreach: 3 universities (Vienna University of Technology, University of Novi Sad and Szent István University in Gödöllő), a research institute and 3 organizations (EODC Earth Observation Data Centre for Water Resources Monitoring GmbH, Global Change Research Centre AS CR, Centre of Excellence for Space Sciences and Technologies) specializing in state-of- the-art IT and remote sensing techniques. This composition ensures the best environment to transfer technical capacities to NHMSs, which generally do not have sufficient internal resources to follow new developments in the relevant fields. Contact with end users is ensured through an international organization, Global Water Partners CEE, which is responsible for the smooth transfer of know-how to the target groups of the project. The administrative organisations and authorities are in the group of Associated Strategic Partners: Administration of the RS for Civil Protection and Disaster Relief of Slovenia, State Land Office of the Czech Republic, Agricultural Station/Forecasting and Warning Service of Serbia in Plant Protection of Serbia, Environment Agency Austria, Austrian Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water Management, Water management directorate of Ministry of Agriculture of Croatia, International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River, Ministry of Agriculture of Hungary. PROJECT CONTENT The project consists of 6 work packages: 4 technical ones, one for management and one for communication. The work packages contain 22 activities. The technical work packages will be introduced in more detail. WP3: Drought User Service. Responsible partner: EODC. The main objective of this work package is to develop a user service for drought monitoring and early warning. The main output of this WP is a web-based user
