Final Report Summary - TWINLATIN (Twinning European and Latin-American River Basins for Research Enabling Sustainable Water Resources Management)
The strategic objective of TWINLATIN, also known as 'Twinning European and Latin-American river basins for research enabling sustainable water resources management', was to fill gaps in knowledge and methods in order to enable implementation of a harmonised water resource management approach in Latin American river basins, addressing the European Water Initiative and using the European Water Framework Directive as a guiding reference approach. In this context an important focus was to enable and perform assessment of climate change effects on the hydrological regime, water availability and water quality of the seven river basins.
The work within TWINLATIN was initiated in September 2005 and was finalised during the spring 2009. Work has been conducted within ten work packages (WPs), each resulting in a final WP report as well as other deliverables:
WP1: Current status and stakeholder structures
WP2: Monitoring and database construction
WP3: Hydrological regimes and extremes
WP4: Public participation
WP5: Sustainable management strategies
WP6: Pollution pressure and impact analysis
WP7: Classification of water bodies
WP8: Change effects and assessment of vulnerability
WP9: Optimal actions and their socio-economic impact
WP10: Twinning activities.
In spite of divers existing structures for water management in the twinned river basins all partners found the European Water Framework Directive a good framework for development of methods and tools for implementation of integrated water resources management.
TWINLATIN has by collaboration with the major public stakeholders in each basin and each partner country significantly contributed to the transfer of research results and methods to major stakeholder institutions in the countries of the twinned river basins.
A matrix identifying the management strengths and weaknesses of the countries of each basin was developed, as well as proposals and recommendations for improvements. The matrix provides a general and summarised vision of the current management situation in the basins and helps to assimilate, compare, and analyse issues common to all. The proposed management systems include various components of development or improvement towards an integrated management of the water resources. As has been shown in some of the TWINLATIN river basins, an important first step for trans-boundary rivers is to share collection and use of data, so that a jointly accepted information-base is built.
TWINLATIN has been well connected with other EU and regional initiatives and has served as an important input to identify problems and needs in non-EU river basins to improve IWRM. A number of publications and participation in different forum assured the dissemination of knowledge and findings to other regional initiatives.
Twinning has significantly raised the competence level of the third country partners, as well as that of stakeholders and end-user water authorities in all countries. In some areas, the European partners have benefited from ambitious development work carried out by third country partners. Language difficulties and the efforts needed for translation and basic technological support have required more resources than anticipated, but the general conclusion of the consortium is that the advances clearly outweigh these difficulties.
All reports have been made available to the public on the project's website http://www.twinlatin.org.
The work within TWINLATIN was initiated in September 2005 and was finalised during the spring 2009. Work has been conducted within ten work packages (WPs), each resulting in a final WP report as well as other deliverables:
WP1: Current status and stakeholder structures
WP2: Monitoring and database construction
WP3: Hydrological regimes and extremes
WP4: Public participation
WP5: Sustainable management strategies
WP6: Pollution pressure and impact analysis
WP7: Classification of water bodies
WP8: Change effects and assessment of vulnerability
WP9: Optimal actions and their socio-economic impact
WP10: Twinning activities.
In spite of divers existing structures for water management in the twinned river basins all partners found the European Water Framework Directive a good framework for development of methods and tools for implementation of integrated water resources management.
TWINLATIN has by collaboration with the major public stakeholders in each basin and each partner country significantly contributed to the transfer of research results and methods to major stakeholder institutions in the countries of the twinned river basins.
A matrix identifying the management strengths and weaknesses of the countries of each basin was developed, as well as proposals and recommendations for improvements. The matrix provides a general and summarised vision of the current management situation in the basins and helps to assimilate, compare, and analyse issues common to all. The proposed management systems include various components of development or improvement towards an integrated management of the water resources. As has been shown in some of the TWINLATIN river basins, an important first step for trans-boundary rivers is to share collection and use of data, so that a jointly accepted information-base is built.
TWINLATIN has been well connected with other EU and regional initiatives and has served as an important input to identify problems and needs in non-EU river basins to improve IWRM. A number of publications and participation in different forum assured the dissemination of knowledge and findings to other regional initiatives.
Twinning has significantly raised the competence level of the third country partners, as well as that of stakeholders and end-user water authorities in all countries. In some areas, the European partners have benefited from ambitious development work carried out by third country partners. Language difficulties and the efforts needed for translation and basic technological support have required more resources than anticipated, but the general conclusion of the consortium is that the advances clearly outweigh these difficulties.
All reports have been made available to the public on the project's website http://www.twinlatin.org.
