Danube conference in Vienna/Bratislava 19-21 April 2010
Workshop 5 " Water quality – fighting pollution, applying modern
standards "
Moderator:
Mr José Palma Andres, European Commission, Directorate General for
Regional Policy
Key note speaker:
Mr Phillipe Weller, ICPDR
Key note speaker:
Mr Hans Sailer, Environmental Technologies
Key note speaker:
Mr Igor Mucha, Common environmental monitoring at HU and SK
border area
Project example:
Mr Slobodan Miko + Mr Gerhard Kuschnig, Kater I +II CC Waters
Rapporteur:
Ms Irina Cruceru, programme manager for territorial cooperation,
DG Regional Policy
Main facts and figures relevant to the sector of water quality
Water framework Directive
- 30% of the water bodies are already in a good state
- 40% of the Danube water bodies are heavily modified
- Navigable length of the Danube: 2,412 km
- size of the basin: 801,463 km2 (20% of the European Union)
- cooperation on Danube as a waterway exists since 1815 when the question of free
navigation on the Danube was raised
Main challenges identified for the area
- Organic pollution
- Nutrient Polution
- Hazardous Substances Pollution
- Hydromorphological Alternations
- 112 infrastructure projects will be implemented in the future – they are reported in the
River Basin Management Plan and cooperation for these projects is foreseen.
Main suggested concrete cooperative actions and projects in the area of
water quality
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- River Basin Management Plan – with the cooperation with the non-MS in the Danube
basin – describes the waters and the situation of the water and it includes a programme of
coordinated measures to improve the water quality by 2015.
- by 2015, the member countries of ICPDR engaged to build most of the countries engaged
to build waste water treatment infrastructure. Only the Balkan countries will have to make
further investments in the treatment of the waste water.
- Slovak-Hungarian environmental Monitoring Programme on the Danube (1995-2005)
was a programme which resulted in very interesting and important monitoring information
which is available for the public and could be used as decision basis.
- Kater, Kater II and CC WaterS - projects dealing with the evolution of a water
management system. The projects refer to drinking water and the water supply.
- Projects in the fields of water supply protection, floods prevention and environment
protection are actively developed and implemented
- Gabcikovo project – still a controversial one – was mentioned.
Good practices identified for reconciliation of environmental, transport
and energy interests
- Joint Statement on Inland Navigation and Environmental Protection
- Example of a flagship project which was developed in the framework of the Baltic Sea
Strategy to reduce the quantity of nutrients in agriculture.
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