Every country in the world, with the exception of island states, shares river basins, lakes or groundwater aquifers with its neighbours. Acquiring sound information on these transboundary waters is usually complicated, because it is dispersed over many institutions.



For the 56 member states of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) in Europe, Central Asia and North America this information was now comprehensively gathered. Entitled "Our waters: joining hands across bridges", the transboundary assessment was published at the UNECE ministerial conference "Environment for Europe" in Belgrade in fall 2007. After more than 10 years of work and with the input of more than 150 experts, it is the first assessment of its kind in the UNECE region - and it comes up with some impressive figures: 140 transboundary rivers, 30 lakes and 70 aquifers are assessed according to their pressure from human activities, their status in terms of quantity and quality, their transboundary impacts as well as trends and management measures. Because of its almost encyclopaedic value, the study is most likely to serve as a reference work for decision makers, joint bodies of river organisation and relevant NGOs. The results of the assessment show that effects of climate change have become evident in almost every analysed river basin. Also, "old" problems such as water-quantity issues in upstream-downstream constellations, contamination of drinking water supply in Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Caucasus as well as pollution from diffuse sources such as agriculture are still persistent and have been clearly identified.



The present report is seen as starting point in a long-term process of improved monitoring by the Water Convention of UNECE. The next version is supposed to be published in five years and will cover certain issues more deeply, such as water-quantity problems and hydromorphological alterations. In the future, it will also be useful to include contact details of relevant organisations working on each water basin. This would make it easier to "encourage all Parties and non-Parties to join their forces for the sustainable use of their waters", as requested by Lea Kauppi, the Finish chairperson of the report. (Corinna Altenburg)



The report is available at http://www.unece.org/env/water/publications/assessment/assessmentweb_full.pdf 

Published in: ECC-Newsletter, February 2008