July 22, 2003 -- River basin management is a concept that has al-ready been used throughout Europe. The interest in it has however grown since the adoption of the Water Framework Directive, whose main target is the implementation of river basin management. The European Water Association (EWA) has now issued one of the first publications that highlights this topic from both a European and an interdisciplinary point of view.
The European Water Association is an independent non-governmental and non-profit making organisation dealing with the management and improvement of the water environment. As one of the major professional associations for water in Europe one of its main aims is the exchange be-tween European experts by providing them a forum for the discussion of key technical and policy issues, be it trough international conferences, workshops and meetings, spe-cial working groups, publications or other means.
With the recently published proceedings "River Basin Man-agement - From Experience to Implementation" one of the first European publications on this topic has appeared. Twelve renowned authors deal with the general basics of river basin management as well as with special topics like pesticides, nutrient management, fish passages, decision support systems, reporting duties, estuaries, habitats, eco-nomic questions, and much more.
Coming from various disciplines as jurisprudence, engineering, and biology, the authors contribute diversified views and experiences about the theory and practice of river basin management. The authors come from different European countries as Germany, Great Britain, France, Austria, and the Netherlands. Additionally important international organisations as the International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River and the European Commission are represented.
"River Basin Management - From Experiences to Imple-mentation" can be obtained from the EWA Secretariat for 25 EUR plus postage (176 pages, publication language: English). Two papers are exemplarily available free of charge on the Association's homepage at http://www.ewaonline.de/, under "EWA Publications".
