Resource Document on Monitoring of Waters and Data Exchange for the Drina River riparian countries
In November 2019, Zavod prepared Resource Document on Monitoring of Waters and Data Exchange for the Drina River riparian countries. This document is a part of the on-going “Drina Nexus follow-up project”, implemented by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) and funded by the Italian Ministry for the Environment, Land and Sea, agreed with representatives Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Serbia.
The primary purpose of this document is to review water monitoring, i.e. water quality, to determine gaps in bilateral cooperation in the Drina River Basin, develop recommendations for improvement, and identify where more work or investment is needed.
This is one of the components of the project, focused on monitoring and data exchange, aims to improve the ability of DRB States to obtain data on water quality and quantity, leading to further harmonization of practices while forming a more coherent picture on the DRB. The activity is timely because the three countries are all developing their monitoring cooperation, bilaterally and well as in the framework of the International Sava River Basin Commission (ISRBC), the Drina being a tributary of the Sava River Basin. The need to improve harmonization and procedures at the bilateral level taking into account the European Union’s Water Framework Directive is particularly actual.
Resource Document on Monitoring of Waters and Data Exchange for the Drina River riparian countries included:
- Review of monitoring and information exchange in transboundary cooperation (bilateral in particular), identification of needs, with focus on water quality. Analysis of monitoring procedures in the countries and examples of rules of procedure;
- Mapping of guidance/tools available (including under the Water Convention), identification of potential guiding tools to support information exchange;
- Development of recommendations for improvement of information exchange (elements for rulebooks for information exchange, rules of procedures for monitoring on stations of transboundary importance).