In January 2017, the international DanubeSediment project was launched. Goal of the project is to improve the sediment management in the Danube River and its tributaries. The Department of Hydraulic and Water Resources Engineering at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics is responsible, as the Lead Partner for the overall project, and for the work package dealing with data collection. The project is co-funded by European Union funds (ERDF and IPA). DanubeSediment ends on 30 June 2019.
In the Danube Basin an increasing discrepancy between surplus and lack of sediment can be observed. This leads to an increase of flood risks and a reduction of navigation possibilities, hydropower production and biodiversity. Thus, sediment transport and sediment management are urgent issues, which can only be treated in a transnational basin wide approach as sediments don’t regard administrative or political borders. The lack of sediment management has been recognized by the ICPDR in the Danube River Basin Management Plan in 2009 and 2015. Thus, the main objective of this project is to improve Water and Sediment Management as well as the morphology of the Danube River. To close existing knowledge gaps, sediment data collection will be performed providing information to the sediment data analysis and will lead to a handbook on good practices of sediment monitoring methods. Furthermore, a baseline document on the Danube Sediment Balance will be prepared, which explains the problems which arise with sediment discontinuity negatively influencing flood risk, inland navigation, ecology and hydropower production. Possible answers to these problems will be provided by a catalogue of measures. The main outputs of the project are the first Danube Sediment Management Guidance comprising measures to be implemented and a Sediment Manual for the stakeholders consisting of approaches how to implement the measures, which deliver key contributions to the Danube River Basin Management Plan and the Danube Flood Risk Management Plan. By a better and sustainable sediment management in the Danube Basin, improved navigation conditions, reduced flood risks, enhanced ecological status and durable hydropower production will be obtained. Furthermore, International Stakeholder Workshop, training 100 experts, will be organized to reach the target groups and users of the project results as well as to establish an efficient interaction with them.
Up-to-date information can be found under www.interreg-danube.eu/danubesediment
The map of the Danube River basin (Source: ICPDR, 2009)