After agriculture, urban use accounts for the most water consumption, and further study of urban hydrology is required to gain deeper insight into specific issues of urban water management, as well as to understand their significance for the Tisza River Basin.

The overall aim of the JOINTISZA project pilot activities on urban hydrology management (UHM) will be to demonstrate how urban hydrological parameters can support urban land cover and land cover change detection methods. Activities will also look closely at how to isolate and categorise urban hydrological hotspots to help anticipate the occurrence and likely severity of urban hydrological problems in middle-sized cities. The integration of spatial UHM tools, by combining methodologies and unifying sources and types of information, can provide an up-to-date hydrological strategy for improving urban infrastructure and green surfaces, which in turn can improve levels of preparedness for extreme hydrological situations.

The pilot project discussed here involves two cities, each with populations of roughly 200,000 —  Debrecen in Hungary, and Oradea in Romania. These cities may be considered representative of many other cities in Tisza River Basin in terms of size and climate conditions. The reason, however, for selecting Debrecen and Oradea is that they have different geographical features. Oradea is representative for cities with a watercourse and a hilly watershed area, while Debrecen is representative plain-situated cities without a significant watercourse. This means that the pilot will be useful for assessing at least two hydrological variables. Some background for the two pilot cities is provided below:

Debrecen is the economic, social and cultural centre of Hungary’s Northern Great Plain region and the seat of Hajdú-Bihar County. Situated 119 metres above sea level and occupying an area of 46,166 hectares with large urban farming belts, Debrecen experiences a continental climate. No river flows through the city, which is located rather on the watershed of two intermittent streams. The source of drinking water is deep aquifers, and there is also a large amount of thermal water utilisation.

     Debrecen city center (© Andrei Dan Suciu)

Nestled between hills dotting the Crișana plain, Oradea, capital of both Bihor County and Romania’s Crișana region, is also an important economic, social and cultural centre.Divides into nearly equal halves by the Cris River, Oradea occupies an area of 11,556 hectares that includes large urban farming and industrial belts.The city’s altitude is 126 metres above sea level, and features a temperate continental climate. There is a moderate amount of thermal water utilisation.The main output of this pilot activity will be the development of a broadly applicable support tool that can provide a framework for sustainable urban water management by suggesting alternative water resource implementation strategies and water recycling possibilities. The pilot results can be utilised not only by hydrologists, but also by stakeholders, urban management and local government personnel, and disaster recovery organisations.

                              Oradea City Hall

The pilot entails three specific deliverables:

• a manual to promote knowledge development and knowledge transfer related to urban hydrology;
• guidelines for assessing case-study results; and
• an evaluation report focusing on the learning process and stakeholder feedback.