TRANSCAT Integrated water management of transboundary catchments

Country: EU Projects
Start Date:           Duration: 36 months         Project Type: RTD
Contract Number: EVK1-CT-2002-00124
Organisation Type:  EC Project
Topics: 
Water resources and their management -->River basins
Water resources and their management -->Stresses, quality and ecological status
Water resources and their management -->Water resources and their management Overview
Project objectives:
The main goal of the project will be to create an operational and integrated comprehensive Decision Support System (DSS) for optimal water management of catchments 
in borderland regions, in context of the implementation of the EU Water Framework Directive. The development of the proposed DSS will allow an integrated water management system within the scope of the transboundary catchment. It will be able to cope
with the complexity of the water resources systems and the uncertainty of decision-making. The DSS will be built around modules that allow simulation of the
range of different climatic, topographic, environmental and socio-economic conditions found in various EU and candidate countries transboundary catchment
areas. This will allow its application not only within Europe and European borderland regions, but also worldwide. The borderland problems in water management
occur not only in Europe, they are a sensitive problem also within, e.g., Africa and Latin America, where they are achieving even the strategic importance from
the point of view of socio-economic approaches of the border states in a sense of their human utilization. Certainly, an integrated DSS might be used not only within the borderland catchments between the individual states, but also for water management control
at the boundary between provinces or territorial (county) regions. The DSS to be developed will focus mainly on pollution, flooding and water use issues. Another objective of the project will be the establishment of an European platform for initiating and promoting international co-operation and networking
that will allow a more detailed insight to transboundary water/environment and related socio/economic problems. This will be achieved by connecting TRANSCAT
with pre-existing EU Research of the FP5, in the perspective of the forthcoming FP6 and, connecting TRANSCAT with EU institutions involved in the process of
implementing the WFD, with specific reference to the problems of pre-accession countries. The proposed project incorporates a research program aiming to avoid the extended aquifer contamination, improvement of groundwater and aquifer quality,
and reducing of flooding risks under the umbrella of adequate integrated water resources management (IWRM). Relevant tools will be developed and procedures defined to be able to prepare the necessary local information for selecting a most promising transboundary
management scenario and take decisions on it. By following up this scenario with local project development in line with certain predefined priorities, synergies
can be initiated and use of funds optimised. Although member states have to take charge of the management of the programmes and financing, this procedure based
on the filter of a regional development strategy can guarantee transformation of EU-policies into regional measures in a more reliable and traceable form.
Results in relation to strategy and policies can be regularly monitored and measurable feedbacks used for programme optimisation (e.g. in ongoing programmes
and actions like the structural funds, INTERREGIII, LEADER+, SAPARD, ISPA, CBC-PHARE).
Project Summary:
Transboundary catchments are usually differently managed in each country, not respecting the interests of its neighbour. These different approaches to 
utilise the catchment may have catastrophic effects. The main goal of the project will be to create a Decision Support System (DSS) for the integrated water
management of transboundary catchments of different characteristics. It will be able to cope with the complexity of the water resources systems and the uncertainty
of decision-making. The DSS will be built around modules that allow simulation of the range of different climatic, topographic, environmental and socio-economic
conditions. Five pilot sites with different natural, social, political, and economical conditions were selected so that collection and evaluation of the
data would be as broad and as general as possible.
Achieved Objectives:

            
Product Descriptions:

            
Additional Information:

            
Project Resources:

TRANSCAT Consortium (2003) TRANSCAT Project: Awareness Creation Management Report, Deliverable DL 1.1

Transcat Project: Report of the TRANSCAT European workshop.

Analysis of selected DSS for the water management domain in borderland regions.

Collection of monitoring strategies effective in countries participating in the TRANSCAT project.

The state-of-art in European water resource related DSS systems and methodologies. An assessment from the transboundary application point of view

Transcat Project: First report with summary and evaluation of contributions in the discussion forum

Transcat Project: IGMS: Optimised hydrological data acquisition and transfer.

Transcat Project: Description of legal requirements and goal system (including the 5 pilot areas).

Groundwater Modelling in Small River Basins

Main decision analytic issues in support for transboundary catchments

Transcat Project: Manual - Standard Procedure for Data Acquisition

TRANSCAT project and prototype of DSS

Transcat Project: Description of specification of multi-sectoral development model,contents and information structure.

Transcat Project: Description of requirements forintegrated methodology and data.

Transcat Project: The DSS prototype
Weblink:
http://www.transcat-project.net/
Funding Programme(s): 
EC Framework Programme 5
Link to Organisations:
Submitted by: EUGRIS Team Dr Stefan Gödeke  Who does what?  18/03/2005 10:09:00
Updated by: EUGRIS Team Professor Paul Bardos  Who does what?  03/10/2006 15:14:00