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Sub-Projects – Theme 1 – Environment

“RiverCross” - Many Rivers to cross

What has been done so far?

The SWG RiverCross including partners from the Netherlands, Germany, Poland and Greece focuses on exchanging experiences in cross-border water management, analysing factors which determine the success or failure of cross-border co-operation in this area and elaborating proposals for improvements and new methodologies. Hereby, the main assumption is that cross-border co-operation is mainly determined by the political arrangement in the individual regions, i.e. the actors and coalitions involved, the rules of the game, the dominating discourses, concepts and ideas as well as power and resources. The results of the analysis and recommendations for the future will be presented in a final report which is elaborated in several work packages being split into 3 phases.
During the first phase, the partners' work is mainly concentrated on the preparation of "quick scans" for each region briefly describing basic problems in water management, the political arrangement in the own and neighbouring regions as well as the current cross-border co-operation. Thus, it becomes obvious that there are considerable differences while comparing the status quo of cross-border co-operation in the individual partner regions. Whilst in the German-Dutch Rhine basin a successful and sustainable structure for collaboration has been created with the Working Group on High Water, the co-operation of the Greek, Turkish and Bulgarian partners within the Evros (Maritza, Meric) basin is limited solely to crisis management. The project partners from Greece would like to improve the co-operation with their neighbours in the area of water management, in particular as regards flood protection, and hope to benefit from the experiences and know-how of other partners through indirect and direct exchange of information.
Direct exchange of information and experiences as well as the discussion of further steps are carried out during joint workshops, expert meetings and conferences. The first workshop of the project partners took place on 6th October 2005 in Nijmegen (Gelderland, NL) and gave the opportunity to introduce all partners, to discuss project contents and to provide information on the financial and audit procedures within the RFO "Change on Borders". The kick-off conference took place from 8th-9th December 2005 in Nijmegen (Gelderland, NL). The meeting of the Advisory Committee, which was set up in order to supervise the project proceedings and to provide advice on the different work packages, preceded the conference. During the kick-off conference, different aspects of water management were discussed, including the implementation of the European Water Framework Directive and the training of future water managers. The profession of a "water manager" has to meet the requirements arising from the necessity of a closer cross-border co-operation, i.e. an integrated, sustainable and ecosystem based approach as well as a more efficient communication. Therefore, a new study course "Transnational Ecosystem Based Water Management" has been introduced at the University Nijmegen. In order to promote similar courses/trainings in other regions in phases 1-3 of the project, e-learning materials are elaborated and tested. On 1st January 2006, the second phase of the project has begun which focuses on the elaboration of situation reports by all project partners. First results, difficulties and conclusions were discussed during the second conference which took place on 17th-19th May 2006 in Alexandropoulis (East-Macedonia Thrace, GR). The reports should be finalised in winter 2006/2007.
From 28th November - 2nd December 2006, the third project conference took place in Lublin (Lubelskie Voivodship, PL) which focused on the experiences in cross-border co-operation in the partner regions, the contents and aims of e-learning courses as well as the proceedings and results of the sub-project RiverCross in Poland, Germany and Greece. The conference also gave the opportunity to discuss the progress by elaborating the summary reports which are an important part of the Final Report that is expected to be published in spring 2007.