Despite the ongoing rain, we could feel the nice atmosphere of the Mediterranean-touched city during our project meeting on 28 and 29 May in Ljubljana (see image below). On a sunny day, the city must be beautiful! Since food isn’t dependent on the weather, our team enjoyed a wonderful common dinner in historic downtown Ljubljana and most of us managed to catch a glimpse of the city in between the raindrops.

During the Steering Committee meeting, the status updates showed that within the next three to four months we can expect reports on the sediment balance and on good-practice measures in sediment management. During this time, several workshops will be taking place throughout the Danube River Basin, e.g.

• International Expert Workshop on Good-Practice Measures, 26 June 2019
• International Stakeholder Workshops throughout July – September 2019
• International Expert Workshop on the Sediment Balance of the Danube, Sept 2019 

An important issue for our partners is the risk assessment to determine the impact of changes in the sediment balance on the ecological status of the river according to the Water Framework Directive (WFD). After some discussion with the ICPDR Hydromorphology expert group chair, the project aims to develop new sediment-related parameters and to judge their impact on ecology.

During the project meeting, the partners also took a long and hard look at a few specific locations along the Danube, where data was missing and interpretations varied, for example at the Romanian and Serbian stretch of the Iron Gate. For example, is the time series long enough to understand the long-term changes in sediment deposition? Is dredging data missing? What is the influence of floods? To come to a common conclusion, our project partners and associated strategic partners will take a detailed look at certain time periods and points to understand the long-term behaviour of the whole section.

All this work flows into finalising the sediment balance of the Danube, which will support local authorities and stakeholders in understanding the changes in sedimentation and erosion in their river stretch. In the “Sediment Manual for Stakeholders”, the DanubeSediment project will publish a variety of good-practice sediment management measures that can be applied to improve sediment management in the Danube. This publication will be presented at the final International Stakeholder Workshop, which will take place at the end of November 2019 in Budapest. Stay tuned for more information!

Project meeting in Ljubljana (Photo: IzVRS)