engleski

Methodology of Monitoring Development as a Part of Water Quality Management

Economic development and urbanisation of space have lead to a significant devastation of the environment, particularly water as its most important component. Clean environment and ensuring of sufficient water quantities of adequate quality are increasingly becoming a limiting factor of social development. The principle of sustainable development, whose starting point is the premise that the need fulfilment of the present generation must not exclude such possibility for the future generations, is being introduced into planning documents. The United Nations Sustainable Development Commission (UN SDC) enacted the Declaration on Sustainable Development, thus officially marking the start of global implementation of the concept of sustainable development. The basic prerequisite for ensuring sustainable development in the water sector requires integrated approach and evaluation of all nature components, both environmental and human. Characteristics and problems of water quantity and water quality management are being interlinked, also with other resources which influence waters by taking into account hydrological, ecological and socio-economic factors. The enactment of the EU Water Framework Directive resulted in a requirement to create an integrated, systematic, scientifically-based concept for solving water management problems. The development of adequate tools which would enable the implementation of sustainable development and the establishment of sustainable water management within integrated environment management created formal conditions for obtaining this goal. The importance of river basin was recognized, and it became the basic management unit of integrated water management, while monitoring became one of the main factors for checking both the implementation of a water management plan and the efficiency of applied measures. This complex interaction of different processes in the environment requires a different approach to problem-solving, thus the introduction of the problem-oriented approach, i.e. so-called DPSIR approach (Driving Forces – Pressure – State – Impact – Response), which was adopted as a problem-solving procedure in environmental protection. The prerequisite for this approach is obtaining high quality, purposeful information, which necessitates the establishment of a monitoring programme, whose scope is greater and which is more expensive than the regular monitoring of water status. This implies a necessary optimisation of the monitoring programme in terms of minimisation of costs and maximisation of information necessary for decision-making. Efficient implementation of the problem-oriented approach requires the use of indicators as a scientific, expert-based tool for obtaining high quality information for decision-making, which enables a presentation of data and information on water quality management in a recognizable, accessible format to decision-makers. The paper shall present the methodology of selecting water quality indicators resulting from a water quality management plan of a river basin, which supports the implementation of the plan, and, apart from the local component, includes national and international levels as well. Based on defined water quality indicators, optimal water quality monitoring, “tailor made” river basin monitoring is created, with the main purpose of obtaining necessary information. In line with set objectives, methodology and criteria for optimal water quality monitoring of a river basin are proposed.

EU Water Framework Directive; integrated water management; water quality monitoring; indicator

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