Danube Basin
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ICPDR
Success through cooperation and
partnerhsip
in the Danube River Basin
Alcoa Foundation is helping the ICPDR to improve transboundary water management in Romania and Hungary and to raise awareness of sustainable development within the Danube community.
The equipment provided through Alcoa Foundation funding has helped to reinforce the capabilities and cooperation of the Romanian and Hungarian team working in the Cris River Basin.
The right equipment and the right information are vital to environmental protection. For the last six years, the ICPDR and Alcoa Foundation have worked together to provide organisations in the Danube River Basin with the tools they need to improve transboundary water management in the basin and to keep the Danube clean.
“Alcoa Foundation has supported a number of specific activities that have helped improve our ability to monitor and manage water resources”, says Philip Weller, ICPDR Executive Secretary. “Only if we know what is in the water, can we develop strategies to remove these pollutants”.
In 2003, Alcoa Foundation donated a Total Organic Carbon/Total Nitrogen Analyser for the National Institute for Marine Research and Development in Constanta, Romania. A year later, the ICPDR received a $100,000 grant from Alcoa Foundation to purchase technical equipment for water research institutions to support transboundary water management on the Crisuri River in Romania and Hungary. In both cases, the equipment has been fully integrated into the Transnational Monitoring Network and helps reinforce the monitoring capacities of the ICPDR.
Alcoa Foundation awarded a $262,000 grant in 2004 for a two-year project to purchase equipment and produce a new best practices handbook in the transboundary area of Romania and Hungary. “This equipment serves an important role in improving monitoring at the level of Mures River Basin and also at the national level”, says Monica Gheorghe of the Mures River Branch Water Directorate at the National Administration Apele Romane. “The water quality data is used in the communication process with national and international stakeholders based in Mures River Basin or in Danube District.”
Work is currently underway with a $75,000 grant provided in 2006 for the second Joint Danube Survey (JDS 2) to assess the implementation of the EU Water Framework Directive, and to improve the quality of comparable and reliable information on water quality for the whole of the length of the Danube River including its major tributaries. The transboundary cooperation on river basin management in Hungary and Romania continues to be enhanced with Alcoa Foundation’s funding for ICPDR’s water quality management projects
Tools for community action. Raising awareness has been an important part of Alcoa Foundation’s support in the Danube region. Previous Alcoa Foundation cooperation in Romania helped launch an ecological awareness campaign in the Black Cris River Basin aimed at identifying the best approaches to engage and educate the public about pollution control, and to enforce communication.
Ecological campaigns will also be an important part of JDS 2, which will be supported by an Alcoa Foundation grant awarded November 2006. Work on the survey will take place in July and August of this year.
“ALCOA Foundation’s support reinforces awareness of the necessity to preserve and improve the quality of the Danube River and strengthens transboundary cooperation”, says Gheorghe.
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