International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River

The ICPDR (International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River) is an international organization consisting of 14 cooperating states and the European Union. Since its establishment in 1998, it has grown into one of the largest and most active international bodies engaged in river basin management in Europe. Its activities relate not only to the Danube, but also the tributaries and ground water resources of the entire Danube River Basin.

The ultimate goal of the ICPDR is to implement the Danube River Protection Convention by promoting and coordinating sustainable and equitable water management, including conservation, and rational use of waters for the benefit of the Danube River Basin countries and their people. The ICPDR pursues its mission by making recommendations for the improvement of water quality, developing mechanisms for flood and accident control, agreeing on standards for emissions and by assuring that these measures are reflected in the Contracting Parties’ national legislations and are applied in their policies.

The ICPDR actively organizes and prepares information for the countries on issues related to water quality and quantity in the Danube river basin and is the coordinating platform for the development of the Danube River Basin Management Plan as required by the EU Water Framework Directive. To carry out this coordination role the ICPDR has organized GIS information systems and data collection on water management from the Danube countries and produces numerous reports and documents for technical and public audiences.

The Project Will Be Essentially Implemented By:

  • Philip WellerPhilip Weller is an environmental planner by training. He studied general Environmental Science at the University of Waterloo in Canada and received a Masters of Urban and Regional Planning from the same University with a focus on rehabilitation and clean-up of environmental hotspots within the Great Lakes of North America. Mr Weller was appointed in August 2003 as the Executive Secretary of the (ICPDR) International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River. The ICPDR is the forum for the 14 major Danube countries and the European Commission to implement the commitments they have made under the Danube River Protection Convention to improve water quality and water management in the Danube River Basin. The Commission recently received the prestigious Thiess River Prize for the success in ensuring effective cooperation in the most international river basin in the world. In his previous position as Programme Director of WWF International (Danube Carpathian Programme, 1995-2002) Mr Weller was the driving force behind the “Lower Danube Green Corridor” - an agreement between Romania, Bulgaria, Moldova and Ukraine and the largest wetland protection and restoration initiative in Europe. Previously he served for four years as director of Great Lakes United, a unique bi-national coalition of interest groups including local municipalities, research organizations, businesses and NGOs in both Canada and the United States focused on the clean up of the Great Lakes. Mr Weller has also managed successful consulting businesses in both Canada and Austria and has done numerous assignments for governments and international organizations. Mr Weller has considerable practical experience in the restoration of natural ecosystems and in planning processes to achieve public involvement in environmental decision-making. He also played a major role in the organization of the Danube Carpathian Heads of State Summit held in April 2001 under the chairmanship of President Iliescu of Romania and HRH Prince Philip, the Honorary President of WWF. Mr Weller helped organize on behalf of the Ecumenical Patriarch of the Christian Orthodox Church the Symposium “The Baltic Sea: A Common Heritage and Shared Responsibility” and is a member of the Executive Committee of Religion, Science and Environment. Mr Weller is author of three books on environmental topics including ‘Freshwater Seas’ an environmental history of the Great Lakes of North America. Mr. Weller is married to the Austrian Andrea Weller, pharmacist, and is father of two sons. is Executive Secretary of the International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River a post he has held since August 2003. He is trained as an Environmental Planner and has extensive experience in ecological restoration and management of water resources in both Europe and North America. He has managed and participated in numerous multidisciplinary research projects in the Danube and the Great Lakes of North America and is author is numerous publications including 3 books on environmental themes.
  • Dr. Igor Liska works as Technical Expert for Water Quality and Water Management at the Secretariat of the International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River (ICPDR) in Vienna, Austria. He provides managerial and technical support to the activities concerning monitoring and assessment of the surface and groundwater quality and quantity in the Danube River Basin as well as the maintenance, operation and further development of the Danube Accident Emergency Warning System. He contributed to the preparation of the Action Programme for Sustainable Flood Protection in the Danube River Basin and currently supports its implementation. In the recent years he has also been project manager of the Joint Danube Survey 2007 (the world’s largest river expedition), author of the monitoring strategy for the Danube River Basin District and coordinator of the sediment management issues under the ICPDR.
  • Alex Hoebart is the ICPDR Technical Expert on Information Management and GIS. He is responsible for the management of the ICPDR Expert Group dealing with information management and has extensive experience in organizing and operating information systems and electronic data collection. He is also responsible for the development of the Accident Early Warning System of the ICPDR and the purchase and maintenance of hardware to secure effective storage and utilization of information within the ICPDR.
  • Dan Teodor Dan Teodor is a geographer and environmental scientist. He studied Environmental Science at the “Babes-Bolyai” University , Geography College, Cluj Napoca in Romania and received a Masters in Environmental Science from the same University with a focus on GIS application in hydrology. He has 10 years experience in Geography and Environmental Science, Mapping, Cartography and GIS & IT fields. In the last 5 years he was involved in water management field and implementation of Water Framework Directive in Romania, specially from GIS point of view . He was involved in several environmental and GIS projects : Land Parcel Information System of Romania, Transboundary Water Management of Crisuri/Koros river basin” between Romania and Hungary, Elaborate the Register of Protected Ares for Romania from WFD point of view. From September 2008 he is the GIS Expert of ICPDR an he is responsible for development and maintenance of the ICPDR GIS system and in particular in ensuring the uploading data from representatives of the Danube countries. Also he is responsible for map production of the Danube River Basin Management Plan. With the EnviroGRIDS project, he will be especially involved in WP2 (task 2.1 - Gap Analysis and task 2.7 - Grid-enabled Spatial Data Infrastructure) is the Expert recently assigned by the ICPDR to assist in the development and maintenance of the ICPDR GIS system and in particular in ensuring the uploading data from representatives of the Danube countries. He recently joined the ICPDR from his post with the agency responsible for water management in Romania (Apela Romana) where he was responsible for the organization of GIS and data collection for the EU Water Framework Directive.

Role in the project:

ICPDR is involved on WP2 (Spatial Data Infrastructure) to perform and supervise gap analysis (Task 2.1) into the Black Sea Catchment. The recommendations derived from the gap analysis should aim at complementing the existing geographical information systems of the ICPDR and Grid-enabled Spatial Data Infrastructure (Task 2.7) to exchange data in various format and projections within the Black Sea Catchment and use a combination of open source (Postgres SQL, PostGIS, MapServer) and commercial software (ArcGIS server, FME) to complement the existing database used by ICPDR.

In WP7 (Dissemination and training) ICPDR will involve decision- and policy makers in the Black Sea Catchment and disseminate project results (Production of multi-lingual leaflets, newsletters, policy briefings and end-user deliverables, Outreach to international platforms - Task 7.1) and Decision and policy makers involvement (Task 7.2).