Since the beginning of the DanubeSediment project, the project partners have been setting up their stakeholder networks. After a successful first international workshop in Budapest in April 2017, the first of two national workshops are currently being organized in each partner country. Goal is to raise awareness on the topic of sediment management and to bring together stakeholders from different sectors such as government, sectoral authorities, NGOs, waterway infrastructure, and hydropower companies. This cross-sectoral approach aims to discuss the situation of sediment management from the perspective of all relevant stakeholders and to develop common initiatives and set common priorities for sustainable sediment management in the Danube and its tributaries. The results of the workshops will be integrated into the DanubeSediment project outputs.

On 10 October 2017, stakeholders in Germany were invited to the Bavarian Environment Agency in Augsburg. You can find a summary of the results, some pictures and further information on the workshop here.

Over 40 participants took part in the first Hungarian national stakeholder workshop that was organized by the Budapest University of Technology and Economy (BME) and the Hungarian General Directorate of Water Management (OVF) on 6 – 7 November 2017 in Budapest. The workshop took place as a cross-fertilization event with two other Interreg Danube-Transnational-Programme projects: DanubeSTREAM, promoting smart, integrated and harmonised waterway management and DANUBEparksCONNECTED, working to bridge the Danube protected areas towards a Danube habitat corridor. 

Croatian Waters organized a workshop in Zagreb on 30 November 2017, which was attended by around 100 participants. The discussion revealed that better coordination in sediment management is crucial and sediment monitoring needs to be extended throughout the country.

The Serbian partner Plovput organized a cross-fertilization workshop with Danube Stream on 5 December 2017. In interactive sesssions, the 30 participants discussed specific sediment-related issues of the Serbian Danube stretch and agreed that a unified approach and common data collection is needed for an improved sediment management.   

Further national workshops are planned in Austria, Bulgaria, Slovakia and Romania during the first months of 2018. During the runtime of the DanubeSediment project, two workshops will to be organized per country and two workshops will be held as international workshops for all interested stakeholders from the Danube River Basin.

Photo credits: LfU (top); Croatian Waters (bottom)