This is the old country page for Serbia and Montenegro. In June 2006, the country of Serbia and Montenegro split into the two independent countries of Serbia and Montenegro.
Relevant information has been moved to the new updated separate country pages of Serbia and Montenegro. We shall however keep this page for archival purposes.
Ramsar mission report for Serbia and Montenegro available now (Dec 2005): following substantial declines in waterbird counts at Montenegro's Lake Skadar Ramsar site, and questions about illegal building, poaching, and industrial pollution within the national park and the effects of planned peat extraction, the government authorities invited a Ramsar expert to assess the situation and offer advice. The mission's report is now available.
Serbia and Montenegro has an annual water flow of about 1,500 m3 per capita, which classifies it among the water-poor areas of Europe. Water supply flow is seasonally uneven. The annual average
precipitation in Yugoslavia is 734 mm, but there are wide variations. In Serbia annual precipitation
varies from 550–650 mm in Vojvodina to 800–1200 mm in the mountainous regions. All the lower
areas of Serbia, including the lower Drina basin, have a precipitation of below 800 mm/year.
Montenegro has an abundant precipitation of about 2000 mm/year, on average, and locally up to 5500
mm/year, with a maximum of 8500 mm/year. Internally renewable water resources are limited,
since about 84% of the available water resources originate outside Serbia and Montenegro. The yearly
groundwater reserves total about 244 m3 per capita.
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. 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."
Statistical evidence regarding the access to safe water and sanitation can be found in the vulnerability survey undertaken by UNDP/BRC, whereby disparities emerges significantly between the majority population and the Roma. I am reporting here data related to south-eastern Europe, but also data disaggregated at the country level are available on the website.
Share of population not having acces to:
improved sanitation: 22% (Majority population in close proximity to Roma) / 72% (Roma) / 27% (IDP's / Refugees)
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.
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.
