During the two-and-a-half-year implementation timeline of IDES project, the actions of three technical work packages will focus on the following:

In Work Package 1 there is a focus on the analysis of the actual situation of water quality and its pressures (mainly via the geographical explicit model MONERIS (Venohr et al. 2011)) and of ecosystem services in the whole Danube region by GIS analysis and literature review. Based on these enquiries harmonization of already existing evaluation approaches and joint development of the framework of the new IDES evaluation tool will be developed. The tool will support planers to assess all relevant ecosystem services, either provisioning, regulating or cultural services, homogenous in the same range and for the same spatial relation. The tool will enable spatially explicit assessment of the status quo and characteristic discharge situations (e.g. extreme flood events), but also of predicted water quality management options.

In Work Package 2 sustainable water quality management actions should be identified in five pilot areas reflecting different territorial and practical challenges. At two stakeholder workshops innovative water quality management concepts will be jointly discussed and elaborated. Different scenarios will be assessed by the newly developed IDES tool leading to a smooth graphical visualization of the results and a more objective decision making. The results and the experience on the pilot actions will be summarized in the IDES manual and transferred to key actors of the participating countries during national training courses conducted by Work Package 1.

© RCSES - Braila Island

Work Package 3 will subsequently develop a joint strategy to ensure the implementation of the IDES approach at the political and administrative level. Both national action plans and a transnational strategy will provide the operational pathway to integrate the ecosystem service approach in future water quality planning processes. Based on the findings of Work package 1, all partners will agree on areas of high priority for water quality management actions alongside transnational relevant rivers. They will be identified by combining the spatial evaluation on nutrient emission and water quality-related ecosystem services.

Based on experiences of Work Package 2 recommendations on applicable water quality management actions will be described. Bringing both packages together the most effective and promising water quality management actions (regarding both, areas and measures) will be prioritized in spatially explicit national action plans to support the tasks and mandatory evaluations (e.g. EU WFD) of water management authorities. As an important step, feedback from a transnational stakeholder workshop will be included helping to fine-tune the IDES tool and strategy in the final phase and to foster its implementation.

At the end of the IDES project in December 2022, the project will have produced eight outputs:

● IDES tool: a method to evaluate ecosystem services homogenously as a basis for integrative floodplain management

● Stakeholder workshops in five pilot areas focusing on water quality and ecosystem services

● Water quality management concepts in five pilot areas

● Pilot implementation of the IDES tool in five pilot areas

● IDES manual, including best practice examples/recommendations

● National training courses for key actors in the water sector on application of the IDES tool

● Transnational Stakeholder Workshop in September 2022 in Budapest

● Transnational Strategy to implement the IDES approach including national action plans

See the entire article on Danube News 42, Stammel, Gelhaus & Damian 2020.