Flooding and Water Issues in Central Eastern Europe
For much of Europe today, stories of disastrous flooding are no myth. With increasing global warming, concomitant quick thawing of mountain snow, and human misuse of natural water sources, every spring may bring news of new flooding. If a Danube or Driva should perchance not be running through a nation’s territory, they made instead face low drinking-water supplies or damage to water-based ecosystems. Noah’s ark, so goes the story, sailed for forty days and forty nights. A look at European water issues for a similar length of time in spring 2006 implies that the struggle and rebirth told of in those ancient myths may even represent a cautionary tale.
Day one. On May 18, the European Environmental Bureau (EEB), the largest federation of environmental citizens’ organisations, issued a call for Europe’s Environment Ministers to “sharpen up their act” in light of poor results in implementing European Union water protection legislation required by the 2000 Water Framework Directive (WFD).
The assessment by the EEB and the WWF of 25 Article 5 reports from 21 countries indicated that, in the words of study authors, “Europe is still far from practising ecologically sustainable water management.” In their view, a stunning 50 percent of surface water bodies are at risk of failing to achieve the WFD’s “good ecological status” objective.
The EEB press announcement noted that 22 reports pinpointed infrastructure such as dams, embankments, channelling, supporting hydropower, navigation, flood defence or agriculture, as key sources of environmental pressure. Only six Article 5 Reports identified hydropower, navigation or flood defence infrastructure as “water service” in cost recovery from end users, and only France and Latvia investigated environmental and resource costs of those sectors.
Day five. After ten weeks of what Serbian officials called the most extensive and long-lasting flooding and land erosion in the country, media began to report a let up in the water-related damage in that country. As of mid-June, heavy rain, uncontrolled groundwater and melting snow caused the Danube, Sava, Tamis and Tisa Rivers to rise, the former two to record heights. In Vojvodina, Central and Eastern Serbia, approximately 200,000 hectares were flooded. Erosion and landslides are estimated to have affected 11,000 families.
Underground water ruined approximately 240,000 hectares of cultivable soil, ironically causing drought-like conditions due to too much water. Underground water has damaged thousands of houses, and quality and shortage problems of potable water, particularly in rural areas, could haunt the Balkans region until next spring.
The catastrophes of March to May made for a hard lesson in disaster preparedness. The torrential rains and flooding in the Balkans have expose the lack of financial resources, weak central control, unstable supply lines and poor infrastructure. A story in The Southeast Europe Times dated May 22 cited Serbia as example of paying a mighty price for its meandering pace in building or reconstructing embankments: The agriculture and shipping industries are now certain to take massive losses for the year.
Allocated for disaster relief from the Serbian government is a mere EUR 3.2 million. Such an amount becoming trifling when considering the annual cost of mosquito eradication in Belgrade alone sucks up EUR 1.7 million. In the wake of heavy flooding, some regional experts have estimated that the cost of Belgrade’s mosquito control this year alone could pass the EUR 3.2 million mark. And there are no significant funds earmarked for contagious disease resulting from flooding and contaminated drinking water.
There may yet time to get prepared before another huge-scale tragedy besets the Balkans, however. In late May, Serbia’s capital investment minister Velimir Ilic announced the allocation of EUR 1 million for an embankment project in Zrenjanin. By June, Serbia was well into the process of securing aid from the European Union, international financial institutions and relief agencies. Perhaps feeling a bit of political pressure, Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica vowed in May “to do everything possible to speed the recovery,” and President Boris Tadic has called for greater investment in building embankments.
Day fourteen. A silver lining was seen in Poland on May 31, with the announcement of Polish environmental organisations’ success in stopping illegal use of flood damage reconstruction project funding. The project was supported by a European Investment Bank loan in the amount of EUR 250 million. Green organizations in Poland have maintained for some time investing interest the Polish Regional Water Management Office has misused funds and has in fact already damaged breeding sites of several bird species protected under the EU Bird Directive and by the Berne Convention.
The site of the dispute was the Sola Valley Natura 2000 site, where citizens’ groups maintain that work was being conducted illegally without necessary permits and environmental impact assessment.
Last year, several Polish groups notified Polish authorities about several sites where flood protection work was being conducted in violation of existing environmental legislation and even on sites that had absolutely no need of flood protection. Anna Roggenbuck of Polish Green Network called the River Sola an “extreme example” of misuse of public money, but “by no means an individual case. … The EIA Directive and very often, as in the case of the River Sola, the Habitats Directive have been clearly violated.” Roggenbuck also claims that “Poland is spending more money on the unnecessary regulation of its rivers than on nature protection.”
Natura 2000 sites tend to be a controversial issue in Poland among hydro-engineers and water agencies, particularly in light of an expected significant amount of EU structural and cohesion funds for the 2007-2013 period to be earmarked for river regulation and the construction of polders. Those in water-use industries fear having Natura 2000 sites in river catchment areas, believing the Natura 2000 site status prohibitive to freedom in managing water resources.
As a response to seemingly contradictory goals such as nature conservation and flood protection, Marta Kaczynska of REC Poland took up the debate on behalf of the Global Water Partnership. Together, GWP and WWF Poland hammered out agreed principles upon which Natura 2000 site water management can be done.
The publication, entitled “Zaszdy gospodarowania na obszarach NATURA 2000 w dolinach rzek,” analyses in detail threats to habitats and species connected with water working in river valleys (e.g. meliorations, dykes, dams). Assembled with the opinions and expertise of engineers and nature conservationists alike, means for reduction of negative impact on Natura 2000 sites are described and recommended. Advised is a countrywide approach, and called necessary was further cooperation between hydro-engineers and conservationists to find compromise between economic, flood protection and nature protection needs.
Unfortunately, notes Kaczyanska, this product is somehow still treated as discussion paper, which illustrates just how difficult is to accept requirements of EU bird and habitat directives.
Day nineteen. When asked about a situation like that of Poland’s Natura 2000 sites, Regional Environmental Center Hungary’s Janos Zliniszky explained it thusly: “In any water system, there are a number of exploitable systems – transport, agriculture stabilization, recreation, ecosystems, fishing – and when too much emphasis is put on one, the others all suffer. Water management is maintaining this balancing act.”
In Hungary, this balancing act has already been planned; it’s just that no one is paying particular attention. The Danube was at the center of major EU initiatives as far back as 2002, when Budapest Initiative on Sustainable Flood Management. Representatives from the European Commission joined with those from Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Romania adopting the Declaration of the Budapest Initiative, a joint statement calling for strengthening in international flood management.
Since then, nothing. Or almost nothing. Since entering the European Union in 2004, Hungary could almost implement directives of the EU WFD, but the political will and horizontal integration of currently warring goals of flood control, water supply, tourism, nature conservation, agriculture and others, are lacking in Hungary. Even outside the borders, Hungarian water protection proceeds apace. The WFD “Roof Report” for 2004 already complemented the country’s “bilateral harmonisation with all its seven neighbouring countries.”
After all, it’s not as though the Hungarian environmental heart is in the wrong place. June 5 also saw the first step in a journey of 450 kilometres for environmental awareness. Amidst some media fanfare, WWF Hungary director Ferenc Markus began his walk along the Hungarian section of the Danube which will take him from Dunakiliti to the Croatian border.
The program is a response to development of the Trans-European Network for Transport, a navigation route launched within the framework of the European Union traffic development program that would run throughout Hungary. The WWF maintains that the program “requires such conditions and interventions [that] irreversible consequences would be caused and would aggravate already existing problems.
On his trail blazing mission, Markus hopes to establish that WWF is not necessarily anti-Danube development – “We only propose not fitting the Danube to the ships, but the ships to the Danube,” he says – and, through daily reports on the three-week jaunt posted online, seeks to educate about the history and biology that runs through Hungary with the river. WWF Hungary’s greater near-future goal is “seeking and working out solutions, where the economic advantages can be realised in a way that they do not severely influence the interests of the environment and people.” Markus’ blog and information on the journey can be found at .
Day twenty-one. Romania was hit almost as hard as Serbia in the flooding of 2006, and drastic action has been called for by that country’s government. On June 7, Romanian minister of environment Sulfina Barbu announced plans to change the course of the Danube in Romanian territory between 2008 and 2012. Reasoning behind the decision was given as both in the hopes of better managing high water levels and of increasing the area’s ecological potential. Barbu said the course of the river should be changed in to have “a coherent defense system against floods, but also a healthy ecosystem, with wet areas, which are very important for a healthy environment.” A series of consultations on the issue with environmental specialists and nongovernmental organizations is next up for Barbu, with results of a study on the matter due by December 2007, so that the program to change the river’s course may begin in 2008.
Day twenty-three. Back in Hungary, representatives from the National Office for Regional Development announced that the plans for the Danube Complex Program were finally complete, and that the cleanup and general improvement plan for Hungary’s water resources would soon be underway. The government had announced the program’s launch in March of this year, but concrete plans repeatedly stalled due to slowdown during to the recent national election and a bit of general feet-dragging.
The plan hopes to address and solve the international segmentation of Hungary’s strategic water reserves, with due emphasis on the Danube both in Hungary and across the border. Domestic shipping via water will become further and further populated in the near future, as road and railway are crammed with the movement of goods. Adding this to the sustained increase in foreign trade expected by the EU member countries, higher levels of government finally showed some willingness to address the problem.
Some critics in Hungary have questioned the program’s plans with regard to health, environmental and regional cooperation issues. Specifics on the program highlighted by government PR focuses on keeping the Danube’s water level low and not building any dams whatsoever.
Naturally, after such a delay, those concerned with the well-being of the Danube are skeptical about governmental concern for the environment and international cooperation. Recently offering a little harsh criticism of the program and its lack of action was Laszlo Somlovari, CEO of Hungary’s 107-year-old national shipping company MAHART Free Port Rt. “I believe,” he said, “that when due to lack of proper damming, the continually deepening and deteriorating Hungarian section of the Danube will regularly cause enough damage that the cost necessary for repair will become higher than our national economic capacity can handle. That’s when we – or our children – will build the first dam.”
Day forty. June 29 marks the annual Danube Day, an observation of the waterway’s importance with events held across all thirteen Danube Basin nations: Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Moldova, Romania, Serbia and Montenegro, Slovakia, Slovenia and Ukraine.
Aside from the pageantry and fun of events designed to involve whole communities in the issues of the day, Danube Day will also see the release of first results from the Danube Environmental Forum’s campaign to protect river wetlands.
Launched on February 2, the DEF campaign has as a mission the encouragement of water planners to learn more about wetland protection measures. Though only member states are required to fulfill the EU Water Framework Directive by 2015, all non-EU countries sharing the Danube Basin have voluntarily agreed to meet EU water law.
“Water cannot be properly protected without protecting wetlands,” says DEF spokesman Johannes Wolf, and it is a contention of DEF that national assessments prepared earlier on the status of Danube water resources did not include adequate attention to wetlands. International organisations such as the ICPDR, UNDP-GEF Danube Regional Project (DRP), WWF and the Ramsar Convention Secretariat have produced helpful tools to assist planners in their efforts, says DEF. The network of 174 environmental NGOs also supports a new DRP project that will produce guidelines and best practices for wetland protection.
As a first step, DEF sees national wetland inventories as crucial and emphasise work to achieve creation of them. After all, asks Wolf, “How can you save wetlands if you don’t even have a list of where they are?” Danube Day will represent about four months’ worth of progress as monitored by DEF, including wetland protection measures in national plans, and the celebration makes for a nice symbolic marker as well, as the DEF program was begun on International Wetlands Day. Final results will be released to mark Wetlands Day observation in February 2007.
And so go six weeks or so in the latest chapter on the book of great floods in history and myth. An additional, less commonly told Noah’s Ark story regards God’s promise to Noah and his family when the skies finally cleared and human life could begin anew. In the skies of the new day was a rainbow, representing a promise that such calamity would never befall the human race again. Today, excessive water may bring political machinations, disease and disaster; or it may bring togetherness, personal initiative and even knowledge. What we’d all really like to see, though, is the rainbow assuring us that tomorrow will be sunny.
