21st ICID European Regional Conference 2005—integrated land and water resources management: towards sustainable rural development

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2005
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 30 KB
• Volume: 54
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1531-0353
• DOI: 10.1002/ird.212

✦ Synopsis

provided the opportunity for more than 300 experts, among them more than 60 young professionals, to meet in these neighbouring border cities on the German and Polish banks of the Oder River for interdisciplinary discussions on integrated land and water resources management. Representing a broad spectrum of professional disciplines, all of them are united in their equally directed view of the common target of preservation and sustainable development of rural areas as sites of living and economy in the conditions of global change within the 21st century. 2. To reach these targets it is of decisive importance to harmonise land use and water regimes at landscape scale.

3. On the one hand, the availability of water and the fertility of soils determine the potential biodiversity, the biomass and crop production of landscapes while, on the other hand, land use has a strong impact on the quality of water. 4. In this context, for the participants of the conference it is clear that managing water for sustainable agriculture means both managing water for food and managing water for rural development. Therefore, it is necessary to coordinate all activities concerning agricultural land use and nature protection with water management practices at both the regional and catchment scale. This coordinated action is what the participants consider as integrated land and water resources management. 5. Activities of recent years have been increasingly focused on aspects of the quality of water and of waterbodies.

Without any doubt, mitigation of water pollution from agricultural non-point sources has to be one of the central targets of our work. Regulations like the Water Framework Directive of the EU give an orientation to reach this target. 6. Water protection issues are of great relevance for all countries. Nevertheless, the participants are convinced that the significance of flood protection, irrigation, drainage and drought-the traditional issues of ICID-will not decrease, but that these issues will become more and more important, even in Central Europe, due to climate and economic changes. 7. The extreme flood events which many river basins have experienced within most recent decades (e.g. Oder, Tisza, Elbe, Danube) have shown that more than in previous times technical flood protection measures need to be combined with land use changes which result in effective water retention and water discharge retardation. Such solutions are to be verified for their efficiency with respect to catchment areas as well as to floodplains.

For the future development of sustainable polder landscapes, existing conceptions have to be evaluated for their monetary and non-monetary impacts and on their functionalities. Thus, the conference participants propose case studies on modular concepts for sustainable polder development strategies and their stepwise realisation. 8. The situation of the irrigation sector in Central and Eastern Europe is characterised by the need for complete reorganisation due to the transition to the market economy. Irrigation of crops has to follow economic rules including operation and maintenance costs. The irrigation systems are to be modernised in water-and energy-saving aspects. For the operation of such irrigation systems suitable user associations should be established.