A watershed in river basin management
Growing demand for water and increasing environmental stress have made the sustainable management of water resources a top priority for the European Union. A watershed moment in this area was the entry into force in 2000 of the EU's Water Framework Directive which pursues an integrated approach to the management of Europe's river basins. The Directive requires the drawing up of individual management plans for each of the Union's river basins. The 'Water resource data integration and model development for management and sustainability of river-basin resources' (IDOR) project sought to develop methods and tools that would strengthen and build the capacity of Member States to develop integrated river basin management plans. The EU-funded project used the guidelines set out in the Directive to develop a model river basin management plan for the Diarizos and Kouris watersheds in Cyprus. The researchers used BASINS, a multipurpose environmental analysis system, to develop the necessary baseline data and analytical tools. IDOR, the resulting report, describes the pressures on and status of the two watersheds and provides examples of the environmental objectives that can be set for them. This pilot can act as a reference model for other efforts to develop river basin management plans elsewhere in the EU.
