Myron S. Rosenberg, Ph.D., P.E.; T. Leahy; Alan G. Hooper; Tom A. Pedersen
This paper presents a river basin management system especially designed for implementation of the European Union’s (EUs) Water Framework Directive (WFD), which went into effect in October 2000. The management system is being piloted in the Eastern River Basin District (ERBD) in Ireland. This paper describes why and how this RBMS is especially well-suited to the WFD’s explicit requirements for, among other things, rational evaluation of alternative management measures, and stakeholder (public) participation in the decision making process.
Currently, many EU countries are challenged with formulating programmes of measures to improve water quality to reach “good” quality status by 2015. The RBMS pays particular attention to this problem, and includes methods and tools to assist in POM selection. The POM selection methods that are part of this RBMS, and the “look and feel” of this system as a whole, could serve as a model approach for other river basins in Ireland and in the EU overall.
Read the full paper: Developing a Web-based River Basin Management System in Ireland