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The EU Strategy for the Danube Region (EUSDR) is an essential framework that strengthens cooperation and supports existing institutions in the Member States for the effective implementation of EU legislation. Recognizing the significance of the Danube River and its basin, the EUSDR fosters collaboration among the countries within the region to address common challenges and achieve shared objectives. By promoting integrated approaches, the EUSDR aims to enhance economic, social, and environmental development while preserving the unique natural and cultural heritage of the Danube region.

Over-exploitation of water resources, water regime modifications, water contamination, and a growing number of flood events – negative effects of which are amplified by climate change – are all issues that require harmonised, integrated actions from management authorities in countries that share river basins.

The EU Strategy for the Danube Region (EUSDR) strengthens cooperative frameworks and supports existing institutions that help Member States to implement EU legislation. Close cooperation with the ICPDR with its experience and mandate in water management is therefore very important. ICPDR and EUSDR coordinate their activities to utilise synergies.

Integrated land development is a key of sustainable resource management and should be tested in a pilot project in Hungary. The outcomes of the project will also be disseminated in Serbia and Romania and should give the principle of integrated land development a boost in the Tisza River Basin.

Projects should have a clear impact on the livelihood of local people - this is especially true for the UNDP/GEF project “Integrating multiple benefits of wetlands and floodplains into improved trans-boundary management for the Tisza River Basin”. This pilot project is currently carried out on the Upper Tisza, in a village literally divided by the Tisza into two countries.

The Bodrog River Basin makes part of the Tisza River Basin and is shared by Slovakia, Hungary and Ukraine. Environmental problems and flood damages are increasing and putting pressures on the people - high time for a project of the UNDP / GEF to promote multiple benefits of wetlands and floodplains.

The Tisza Basin has been subject to significant anthropogenic impacts that have resulted in a degraded system, particularly in terms of pollution and the loss of floodplains and wetlands. The present project is focusing on the development of strategies and implementation of demo project to test the multiple environmental benefits of wetlands to mitigate impacts of floods/droughts and help to reduce nutrient pollution.

At the first ministerial meeting of the ICPDR countries held in December 2004, ministers and high-level representatives of the five Tisza countries signed a Memorandum of Understanding, establishing the ICPDR Tisza Group for coordination as well as implementation of an international integrated Tisza River Basin cooperation under the umbrella of the ICPDR. After 15 years of successful cooperation the ICPDR Tisza Group will focus on the implementation of the updated ITRBMP.

Romania, Ukraine, Serbia, Slovakia and Hungary share the responsibility for the Tisza river basin and undertook jointly activities towards the implementation of the EU Water Freamwork Directive and the EU Flood Directive. These efforts were supported by the European Union in the frame of the TISAR 2007 and led to good results.

The investigation of the Tisza River was a follow-up project of the Joint Danube Survey 2001 organised by the ICPDR. The objective of the survey was to investigate the water quality along the river and to promote public awareness. The countries participating at the survey include Romania, Slovakia, Hungary, and Serbia and Montenegro.