Public Report
With the aim of obtaining a complex picture of the water quality in the Danube and its major tributaries, the annual assessment of water quality – published every year in the ICPDR TransNational Monitoring Network’s (TNMN) Yearbooks – has been supplemented by periodic investigations: Joint Danube Surveys. These are carried out every six years in sync with the river basin management planning period according to the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD). It requires that Danube River Basin countries periodically assess certain water characteristics, while the ICPDR sets out processes and goals for the cooperation. An assessment must include determining the quality and quantity of waterbodies, the effects of human activity on the surface and groundwaters, and the economic effects of water use.
The Joint Danube Survey – the most comprehensive investigative surface water monitoring effort in the world – harmonises water monitoring practices across the Danube countries, in support of the WFD committing member states to achieving good water status.
Three JDSs were previously conducted in 2001, 2007 and 2013, and the fourth of its kind, JDS4, started in mid-2019 at sampling sites in 13 countries across the Danube River Basin. The widened scope of this fourth survey focused on 51 sites nominated by the ICPDR experts. The sites comprised TNMN sites, JDS3 sites and sites for national surveillance monitoring in 2019, plus 7 additional groundwater sites in the Danube aquifer and 11 urban wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs).
Downloads
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JDS4 Public Report This contains a snapshot of the findings from JDS4: one of the most comprehensive investigative surface-water monitoring efforts in the world.