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Kosovo : How to secure water resources?

Updated : 26/02/2010

(The News N° 21 - January 2011)

Since July 2010, IOWater has been involved along with SCE in the implementation of the World Bank project entitled "Water Security for Central Kosovo".

This project aims to help the Kosovar Government in developing a program to secure water resources in the Iber River Basin, a transboundary river with Serbia, by:

  • Providing a suitable and reproducible model for integrated water resources planning and management;
  • Identifying structural and non structural priority measures for sustainable socio - economic development;
  • Quantifying achievable water savings.

The Iber Basin hosts the capital Pristina and the power plant that feeds it. Other hydro - power projects are being studied.

This project therefore aims to present different baseline scenarios with different goals, industrial and mining uses, agricultural and domestic uses in urban, peri-urban and rural areas and to propose a range of mea - sures to secure water supply in adequate quantity and quality and suitable for each use, to improve the performance of services including an increase in efficiency and mana - gement of facilities, while preserving natural environments.

The assessment of surface and groundwater resources and the modeling of the hydrogeological system for the Iber Basin are an integral part of the project.

Estimating uses and predicting their shortterm evolution are another component for which IOWater’s action has begun to clarify the future vision by 2035 for both agriculture and municipalities and for the management of transboundary waters.

Alternative scenarios, based on assumptions validated with the World Bank, will be supplemented by an analysis to identify priority investments.
IOWater is also involved in the economic evaluation of various recommended measures.

 

 

 

Better watched river waters

 

(The News N° 16 - December 2008)

For the purpose of matching its legislation and administrative methods for water management with the European “standards”, the Water Department of the Ministry for the Environment and Regional Planning of Kosovo is the current recipient of a project financed by the European Union and implemented by the European Agency for Reconstruction and the Liaison Office of the European Commission in Pristina.

A team made up of three long-term international experts, local experts and short-term international experts of GFA Consulting Group GmbH, Bas-Rhône Languedoc International and IOWater provided assistance to the Kosovar authorities for establishing water monitoring programs, developing Integrated Information Systems and for building institutional management capacities for basin management purpose.
During the first half of 2008, special effort was made in a pilot basin of a tributary of the Drini River. The undertaken activities aim at developing monitoring methods allowing defining the ecological status of rivers, better understanding the great management stakes and analyzing the data management chain in order to formulate recommendations on the monitoring of the status of water bodies in the entire country.
Within this framework, IOWater experts participate in the development of methods for the biological monitoring of rivers and of quality elements which were not followed up until now in Kosovo (Fish, invertebrates, diatoms, etc.). Training programs carried out in situ also allowed the collection of field data and the testing of the European tools developed by the Member States within the Common Implementation Strategy (CIS) of the European Water Framework Directive.

In order to complete the activities in the pilot basin, a working group was made up and gathers representatives of the various departments of the Ministry for the Environment and Regional Planning, the Hydrometeorological Institute, universities but also municipalities or water utilities. Work on modeling, definition of the structure of the future water information system, flood management and on wastewater management also started at the national level, in parallel to the activities undertaken in the pilot basin.

 

 

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