About the inventory
Background
Leading Partners and national experts team
Scope of the Study and Methodology
Geographical scope
Hydrographical scope
Methodology and Inventory Subjects

About the inventory

This study is the result of two recent initiatives in the Balkan region, one by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety together with Global Water Partnership-Mediterranean (GWP-Med), the other by UNESCO and the UNESCO Chair/International Network of Water-Environment Centres for the Balkans (INWEB).

The German government initiative, which is closely linked to the work of GWP-Med, aims at encouraging cooperative, implementation-oriented activities concerning transboundary water management in the Southeastern Europe (SEE). The initiative is part of the Petersberg Process on global transboundary waters cooperation (initiated and driven by the German Federal Ministries for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, and for Economic Cooperation, the World Bank, and in close cooperation with the European Commission). Since 1998 six international round tables have been organised in the framework of this process. The Petersberg Declaration (1998) and the Berlin Recommendations (1998) contain a set of internationally well-acknowledged principles and recommendations for co-operation on transboundary waters. Recently the German Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, the Ministry for Economic Development and the World Bank decided to initiate Phase II of the Petersberg Process, which will focus on identifying water management problems in smaller river and lake basins in the Balkan region and on initiating cooperative processes to resolve these problems.

The initiative is being developed in close cooperation with the Mediterranean Component of the European Union Water Initiative (MED EUWI), which includes the SEE region. Greece is the Lead Country, and GWP-Med is providing technical support acting as MED EUWI Secretariat. MED EUWI is providing a platform for regional cooperation and has already developed a list of subjects to be addressed for assessing the environmental issues and related investment needs of the SEE region.

UNESCO, and more specifically UNESCO's International Hydrological Programme (IHP) (Paris), UNESCO's Regional Office for Science in Europe (ROSTE) (Venice) and the Internationally Shared Aquifer Resources Management - Mediterranean (ISARM-MED) initiated in early 2003 an extensive programme on transboundary waters in the SEE region.

Background

The starting point for this assessment was the study “Major Transboundary Rivers and Lakes in the Balkan Region“ that was prepared in the summer of 2003 by Zinke Environment Consulting for the Secretariat of the International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River (ICPDR) in Vienna.

UNESCO’s, IHP, ROSTE and ISARM-MED are working in cooperation with UNESCO Chair/INWEB, which is coordinating the study on transboundary waters in the SEE region and organised a regional workshop in Thessaloniki in October 2004 to present and assess its results.

In March 2004, discussions between UNESCO-IHP, UNESCO Chair/INWEB and the GWP-Med Secretariat (Athens) aimed at coordinating both activities and at preventing a duplication of efforts and wasting of resources. One of the advantages of this is that both studies are being prepared by the same team of national experts, most of whom are members of UNESCO Chair/INWEB.

In July 2004, it was agreed that both studies could be merged into one document, which will have the advantage of presenting the results of both expert teams.

Leading Partners and national experts team

The German government/GWP-Med assessment was coordinated by
Zinke Environment Consulting for CEE (Dipl.Geogr. Alexander Zinke), Vienna, Austria.

The UNESCO study was coordinated by
UNESCO Chair/INWEB, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Prof. Jacques Ganoulis), Greece.

Basic information was provided by the following national experts:

• Assoc. Prof. Roumen Arsov, University of Architecture, Civil Engineering and Geodesy, Sofia, Bulgaria
• Prof. Mitja Brilly, University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Civil and Geodetic Engineering, Ljubljana, Slovenia
• Prof. Dr. Sevket Cokgor, Istanbul Technical University, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Istanbul, Turkey
• Prof. Tarik Kupusovic, Hydro-Engineering Institute, Sarajevo, Bosnia-and Herzegovina
• Prof. Dejan Ljubisavljevic, Faculty of Civil Engineering, University of Belgrade, Serbia and Montenegro (only UNESCO part)
• Prof. Cvetanka Popovska, University of Ss. Cyril and Methodius, Skopje, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia
• Prof. Dr. Mitat Sanxhaku and Dr. Manjola Banja, Hydrometeorological Institute, Tirana, Albania;
all of whom are members of the UNESCO Chair/INWEB, as well as by
• Asst. Prof. Davor Malus, University of Zagreb, Croatia, and
• Dr. Dragana Milovanovic, Ministry of Agriculture and Water Management, Directorate for Water, Republic of Serbia, Serbia and Montenegro (only GWP-Med part).

Scope of the Study and Methodology

The objective of this study was to extend the inventory of the Balkan’s transboundary river and lake basins. This refers to
• hydrographic, geographic, environmental and socio-economic data, largely being the task of the UNESCO part of the study, as well as
• information on water policies (international agreements, national institution setting, projects and critical problems to be addressed by donors) which was the task of the German government/GWP-Med study.
Output should be a
• situation analysis for internationally shared surface water bodies of the Balkan region.

Geographical scope

The Balkan peninsula lies in the south-east of Europe. It covers an area of around 520,000 km² and has about 45 million inhabitants.

The “Balkan Region” is defined for the purpose of this study as the area south of the Sava river sub-basin (starting west of Ljubljana) and further downstream south of the Danube river, i.e. excluding the territories of Romania but including the Meric-Ergene sub-basin in Turkey. This means in particular:
• Slovenia (from the line Triest – Ljubljana eastward but south of the Sava River)
• Croatia (the region south of the Sava River up to the Adriatic coast, but not the islands)
• Bosnia & Herzegovina (the region south of the Sava River up to the Adriatic coast)
• Serbia & Montenegro (the region south and east of the Sava and Danube rivers up to the Adriatic coast but excluding the Morava river sub-basin which is not transboundary)
• Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia
• Albania
• Greece (only the mainland)
• Bulgaria
• Turkey (most of the European part of the country).

Hydrographical scope

There are many small rivers stretching across state borders in this region but the focus was laid on the major transboundary rivers and lakes:
• Transboundary rivers having a catchment larger than 2,000 km²
• Lakes with a size larger than 10 km² and with a transboundary catchment

As the Balkans is not a single hydrographic unit (as is, for example,. the Danube) but is part of the Danube, Adriatic and Aegean Sea catchments, the term sub-basins was used for this inventory to select and name the region’s major rivers and lakes.

Methodology and Inventory Subjects

Starting from separate inventories developed within the UNESCO and GWP-Med/German projects in winter 2004, it was discussed and agreed in April 2004 to effectively coordinate and harmonise the collection of data and information. The involved national experts received respective guidelines how to fill in the revised UNESCO and GWP-Med templates for each of the sub-basins. In the last step, the two sets of draft national results of both studies were merged first at sub-basin level and then combined within one document.

The two studies aimed at briefly exploring and allowing comparison of the national parts of all transboundary sub-basins for the following subjects: