Danube Basin Analysis: pressures and impacts related to nutrient pollution

Period:	04/2004-08/2004
Location:	Danube Basin, Black Sea
Client:	UNDP-GEF Danube Regional Project

assignment/short description

In 2001-2004 Deltares (Delft Hydraulics) has been a partner in the Consortium carrying out the daNUbs research project ('Nutrient Management in the Danube Basin and its Impact on the Black Sea", supported by the 5th EU Framework Programme.

While the daNUbs project was running to an end, the International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River (ICPDR) was compiling the Water Framework Directive Roof Report 2004. Under the UNDP-GEF Danube Regional Project, Deltares (Delft Hydraulics) was commissioned to draft certain sections of the Roof Report 2004, and to assimilate the results from the daNUbs research project in the report. The key issues in this respect were a description of the pressures from nutrient loadings to the Danube River and its tributaries, as well as the impacts from these loadings on the Danube and its transboundary tributaries, on the Danube Delta and on the Black Sea.

Nutrient (mis)management

Mismanagement of nutrients in the Danube Basin has led to severe ecological problems: the deterioration of groundwater resources and the eutrophication of rivers, lakes and especially the Black Sea. These problems are directly related to social and economic issues: e.g. drinking water supply, tourism and fishery as affected sectors and agriculture,  industry and waste water management as drivers. The daNUbs project provided an interdisciplinary analysis of the Danube catchment area, the Danube River system and the mixing zone of the Danube River in the North-Western Black Sea in order to recommend proper management for the protection of the water system in the Danube Basin and the Black Sea.

Deltares contributed to this project by providing state-of-the-art modelling of the transport and fate of nutrients in the Danube and its larger transboundary tributaries (Drava, Sava and Tisa). Furthermore, Deltares’ staff co-ordinated the development and improvement of a coherent suite of models as an integrated management tool for nutrients in the Danube Basin. This tool has been applied to assess scenarios for nutrient management in terms of their effect on water quality and aquatic ecology of the Danube and the Western Black Sea shelf.

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