Belarus and the European Environment Agency water experts just finished a 2-day workshop, building capacity for developing water accounts in line with the United Nations System of Environmental-Economic Accounting for Water Framework that can support policy-making and implementation. The workshop kicked off an EU funded project focused on sharing environmental information, including water – a resource that is vital for all life on our planet, including ecosystems, society and the economy.
The key outputs from the workshop is the agreement on:
1- Implementation of the C1-C5 of the UNECE indicators as response to the water quantity
2- C10-C11 will be implemented in the area of water quality
3- Asset accounts will be developed as complementary to the flow accounts which has already been developed at the national level.
4- State of water report at the country level will be implemented based on the outputs of the assets and flow accounts
Good water management requires cooperation and sharing information among many stakeholders. Moreover, it is important to obtain relevant, reliable, robust and harmonized data that can be used to assess the state and pressure on the water resource.
With solid information it is possible to make sound and effective policies that support marine and freshwater ecosystems, serving many important functions from filtering, diluting and storing water to preventing floods, and from maintaining the climate balance to safeguarding biological diversity.
Context:
The European Neighbourhood Instrument of the European Union funds ENI SEIS II East project. The four-year project implements the principles and practices of the Shared Environmental Information System (SEIS). The project builds on previous cooperative activities in the six Eastern Partnership countries (Armenia, Belarus, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine), carried out between 2010-2015. It aims to deepen the EU’s relations with the six Eastern Partnership countries, and support the promotion of environmental protection by strengthening environmental governance. The project builds capacity in the fields of biodiversity, water, land, air and environmental assessments.
Background info:
ENI SEIS II East project : https://eni-seis.eionet.europa.eu/east/governance
Water area of the project:
https://eni-seis.eionet.europa.eu/east/areas-of-work/data/water
European Environment Agency water: https://www.eea.europa.eu/themes/water
Contact information: Victoria Goncharova
Victoria.goncharova@eea.europa.eu
+45 33 42 59 39
