Integrated river basin management and protection of water resources

Experts’ meeting

29 April 2015, Bratislava

The Slovak Republic, as the Presidency country of the Visegrad Group (V4) has organized a whole range of diverse events. To intensify mutual co-operation and promote reinforcement of the Visegrad Group (V4) countries´ position in the European Union, the Ministry of Environment of the Slovak Republic /Water Section organized experts meeting on 29 April, 2015 in Bratislava. Experts from V4 and Bulgaria and Romania were also invited (list of participants).

The central motto of this event was „Integrated river basin management and protection of water resources“. Experts were invited to discuss the following mutually interconnected and interrelated topical issues: climate change and its mitigation, its impacts on hydrological regime, water retention capacity in the country, and international and national approaches to integrated water management. The objective of this meeting was to take one step towards supporting implementation of many key documents which have addressed these topics, e.g. Rio + 20, the Blueprint to Safeguard Europe ´s Water Resources, UN ECE Water Convention and, at the same time, to strengthen present and future co-operation in transboundary water management (programme and presentations).

The Recommendation adopted at the experts´ meeting shall be presented in the form of a joint message of the V4 countries + Romania to the Council of European Union Ministers of the Environment.