Press Release (96)80 21 May 1996

NATO Advanced Research Workshop On "An International Data-Sharing Programme For The Effective Management Of Danube River Basin Resources" NATO and Cooperation Partner scientists and environmental experts will recommend a long-term action programme for the sharing of water quality and other environmental data among Danube river basin countries at an Advanced Research Workshop in Budapest, Hungary, from 27th-30th May. Thirty-four experts from NATO countries, the Danube countries and international river basin organizations will develop a proposed action programme following panel discussions of current monitoring and data sharing activities in Europe. The workshop will take into consideration the extensive activities of the Danube Environmental Programme. Case studies of information networking in transboundary Danube tributaries will report on immediate and long-term scientific and technical needs for improving data sharing throughout the basin. The NATO Advanced Research Workshop comes at a critical time, as international funders begin large investments in waste treatment and environmentally sensitive development projects in Eastern Europe. The sharing of accurate, compatible data to support the protection and equitable sharing of Danube resources has increased since the change in East European governments in 1989 but there are still unmet needs for scientific and technical expertise in this vital region. Representatives of Germany, The Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States will describe and critique the water quality monitoring and reporting programmes of their respective countries. A panel on current data-sharing among countries in the Rhine and Danube basins will be followed by summaries of East European country programmes contributed by representatives of NATO Cooperation Partner countries, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Moldova, Romania, Slovakia and Ukraine and by Croatia and Slovenia. A prototype of an information system which connects and improves the use of the environmental databases now available will be demonstrated. Co-directors of the workshop are Dr. Irene L. Murphy, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA and Dr. Peter Bakonyi, managing director of VITUKI Consult, Budapest, Hungary. For further information please contact Dr. Murphy at 2005 37th Street N.W., Washington, DC, tel: +1 202 337 2376, fax: +1 202 342 6434, e-mail: imurph@aol.com; or Dr. Bakonyi on fax: +36 1m 215 2245, e-mail: vitukicons@attmail.com, or Dr. Luis Veiga da Cunha, NATO Division of Scientific and Environmental Affairs, at fax: (32-2) 707 4232.