ESTROM-INWAC

The project aims at developing and implementing the instruments required by an integrated water quality management system, and to use these tools to identify an adequate water quality management strategy at the river basin scale with an application to the Ialomita river basin.

The project proposes transferring and adapting the existing know-how from Switzerland (for example the Gesreau GIS) in Romania and then to develop the scientific and technical issues related to water quality management, before transferring and adapting back the obtained results.

The central point of the project lies in the fact that pollution alleviation or remediation actions, to be effective, have to be designed according to the whole water system, taking into account the whole chain of causes and effects and giving special attention to the spatial relationships among the elements of the system.

The main questions being addressed by the project consist of identifying the relevant thematic fields to be considered and to develop appropriate analysis tools to propose a coherent short-, mid- and long term strategy for water quality improvement. The way in which the needed data are to be collected and organized according to a well designed conceptual data model within the GIS will therefore play a central role in defining those strategies.