The Republic of Serbia covers an area of 88,361 km² and includes two provinces: Vojvodina (21,506 km²) and Kosovo and Metohija (10,887 km²); the latter being currently under an international protectorate. 92% of the country (81,374 km²) lies within the Danube Basin (accounting for 10% of the Basin) (ICPDR 2006), and is composed of five sub-river basins of the Danube River basin: the Sava; the Morava; the Tisza; Banat-Eastern Serbia; and the Pannonian Central Danube. Each of these sub-river basins crosses international boundaries (although the Morava sub-river basin only has a limited area within Bulgaria) (EAR 2005). Approximately 90% of all Serbia’s accessible water originates from outside its territory. International cooperation on water issues is thus vital for Serbia (ICPDR 2006)
Low quality and shortage of drinking water increasingly affects populations in smaller cities and rural areas, and to a lesser extent those of the major urban centres. Most small communities (<2000 people) do not have wastewater treatment plants and a number of existing plants are not operational. As a large proportion of the population lives in small settlements, proper wastewater management is important (ICPDR 2006).
Supply and quality of piped drinking water in small urban areas in Serbia have deteriorated in recent years due to lack of sufficient management and reinvestments, whereas rural communities continue to rely on uncontrolled private wells or piped community systems of which 90 per cent do not meet bacteriological standards. A consequence is an increased number of water-borne diseases (especially shigellosis) and a higher incidence of diarrhoeal diseases among children with school children being at particular risk.
Access to Safe Water
According to the Poverty Reduction Strategy for Serbia (Belgrade, 2003), "Health status data indicate that in Serbia water related diseases are not a significant contributor to the burden of chronic or acute disease (WHO, 2000; UNICEF, 2001). Mortality among infants and children under five, a common indicator of water supply and sanitation conditions, has declined by one half during the 1990s and is associated with improved household sanitation and improved treatment for diarrhoea and acute respiratory disease. The under-five mortality rate for diarrhoea declined by 38.2% during the 1990-97 period (UNICEF 2001). However there are some indications that the situation is changing. Deterioration in the situation of drinking water may well reverse the positive trend in under-five mortality rate. Recent epidemiological studies on health and environment have found linkages between living conditions, drinking water quality and health. The situation is particularly acute for urban slums, populated by refugees, Roma and IDPs, as they lack the resources to purchase bottled water."
The Tisza river system is an internationally significant river system, which is significantly degraded and continues to be threatened. The river and its tributaries flow from the Carpathian Mountains and a 157,200 square kilometer river basin which is home to some 14 million people. It begins in the territories of Ukraine with the White and Black Tisza. This river with its tributaries is the only water source for Transcarpathia region of Ukraine since 98% of its territory belongs to the Upper Tisza catchment area. It also flows from Romania and Slovakia via number of smaller tributaries fed by mountain streams and flows into the Great Plain of eastern Hungary and then south into Serbia and Montenegro where it joins the Danube. This river is the main water source for Hungary, a significant source for Serbia and Montenegro and an important source for western Romania and southern Slovakia. The floodplains of the river extend to some 30 thousand square kilometer, the majority of which can be found in the Hungarian Great Plain and the adjoining plains in Western Romania and Serbia.
The Tisza River Basin is in need of a coordinated regional effort to develop harmonized national and regional policies for integrated land and water management. This project will address the issues of flooding, pollution, loss of biodiversity, adaptation to climate change, and the need for sustainable development in the Tisza River Basin. The project Establishment of Mechanisms for Integrated Land and Water Management in the Tisza River basin will address these issues through a scientifically based Transboundary Diagnostic Analysis (TDA) which will inform the development of coordinated National Action Plans (NAPs) which support a regional Strategic Action Programme (SAP). The NAPs and SAP will establish regional and national priorities and coordinate policies throughout the region. Implementation and execution of small scale pilot projects will support these efforts towards environmental governance reform strategies and serve as a learning experience for other larger scale pilot projects to be conducted as the Strategic Action Programme is implemented.
This project will build on what has already been achieved through the EU accession process and the EU and GEF support of the International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River (ICPDR) in particular the implementation of the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD), with regard to the existing ad hoc Tisza Group of the ICPDR and the Tisza Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) "Towards a River Basin Management Plan for the Tisza River supporting sustainable development of the region" signed by all riparian countries in 2004. It will also build upon the numerous UNDP sustainable development initiatives and GEF biodiversity projects in the basin, and it will link with activities of the newly established interim secretariat of the Carpathian Convention. It will take the concept of Integrated River Basin Management beyond the water sector and co-ordinate the development, management and conservation of land and water resources, and embed rather than retrofit conservation and environmental policy into the national and regional planning framework.
A major product will be the development of a regionally owned Strategic Action Programme, which will to the extent possible be streamlined with an EU River Basin Management Plan for the Tisza, meeting the requirements of the Water Framework Directive, and a Flood Prevention and Risk Management Strategy, while at the same time addressing wider sustainability issues in the water, agriculture, energy, industry and navigation sectors, highlighted by the work of the UNDP in their Tisza Basin Sustainable Development Strategy. Thus the project will provide a bridge between these on-going initiatives in a single regionally owned and nationally coordinated planning document which will allow for deepening and widening the planning scope.
In the framework of the development of institutional infrastructure for river basin man-agement purposes, the 5 Tisza countries find it crucial to pay more attention to the inte-gration of the Agricultural Sector in river basin management activities and as such pro-mote the integration of rural water management in river basin management activities.
The project will therefore develop methods, instruments and procedures for this integra-tion; inform relevant staff of the ministries and local and regional water management authorities and other stakeholders on the existence of the developed methodology (dis-semination); and train respective stakeholders (mainly the staff of the local and regional water management authorities) in their use. The methods, instruments and procedures will be tested in one or two pilot areas (most likely in the Ukrainian-Hungarian and Romanian-Hungarian border regions) in order to assure practicability.
The concrete outputs of the project will be a set of manuals on aforementioned methods, instruments and procedures; a number of staff of local and regional water regulatory bodies trained on the use of these manuals; and all stakeholders (ministry staff, local and regional water regulatory bodies, water users in the mentioned pilot areas) properly informed on their existence by active dissemination of project results.
This short document contains an overview and lessons learned from the 'Global Waste Water Study in Serbia & Pre-feasibility Study for Belgrade Waste Water Management'.
This report, intended to open debate, stimulate thinking and identify challenges, showsthat reform that empowers the poor is possible and potentially fruitful under certaincircumstances.
Upon the flooding of several municipalities in the Banat region of Vojvodina, north Serbia, 21 April 2005, the United Nations Development Programme in Serbia and Montenegro [Belgrade office] undertook a one-day assessment field mission to the affected areas in order to identify possible programmatic interventions in the reconstruction and recuperation processes of the region.This Report is intended for the use of UNDP, in planning a mid-term and long-term developmental response to the challenges of the natural disaster in Banat, and will be shared with other agencies in the United Nations system in Serbia and Montenegro and internationally for their assessment and planning needs.
The report aims to summarize key issues and strategic directions for improved WRM at the national and transboundary levels for the South Eastern Europe (SEE) region.
Gives an overview of the water sector (infrastructure, policies, legisalation, institutional frameworks) in each of the countries of Southeastern Europe with a view to formulate a regional water strategy.See Also<Report>Water Resources Management in South Eastern Europe, The World Bank (2003)</Report><Report>Assessment of the Management of Shared Lake Basins in Southeastern Europe</Report>
