Water Contingency Management in the Sava River Basin

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The lack of coordinated response to emergencies in case of accidental pollution and floods on transboundary watercourses in Sava River Basin is our key challenge. The situation is a threat to people, environment and all water uses in the basin. It should be addressed by improved transboundary coping capacity. For that purpose International Sava River Basin Commission defined a strategic policy framework with several ratified protocols. WACOM will enable development of response mechanisms, where some components were already implemented i.e. flood forecasting system for the Sava river basin, while the response component is still missing. This was proven during recent accidents: accidental pollution of the Spreča river in 2018 and extreme flood event on Sava river basin in 2014.   Transnational as well as cross-sectorial interaction between the water management and civil protection administrations is also identified as a necessity. They will be supported by improved operational response framework and rapid response toolbox. With the WACOM project, this will be implemented, leading to the coordinated response measures and improved interoperability of all involved institutions. With the harmonization process detailed cooperation procedures will be defined and operative toolbox developed. It will be tested and verified by pilot actions. Finally the strategy will be prepared for its implementation. In this way the platform will be set for improved cooperation, which will be harmonized with other agreements and EU procedures – i.e. EU Civil protection mechanism as well. The project will be based upon already adopted protocols, upgrading them with innovative toolbox supporting the cooperation and joint situational awareness and thus improving preparedness and implementation of transboundary response measures. With several stages of learning interactions this will be verified by pilot actions with implementation strategy defined at the final stage of the project.

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