International Student Course in IWRM.

The DRIMON Partners organised a course for students from 3 countries in Durres, Albania, September 13-18 2009. The topic was integrated water resources management.

Read more about the course here.

June 7 2009

From research to management: DRIMON End User Workshop, Ohrid 2009

The DRIMON Partners hosted an End-user Workshop in Ohrid, Macedonia, on June 3 2009.

About 40 participants from four countries met to discuss issues related to environmental concerns in transboundary lakes.

Read all about the workshop here.

April 2009

DRIMON results presented at ALBLAKES 2009

Results of the DRIMON Project were presented at the ALBLAKE Conference at Pogradec, Albania, in April 2009. The conference was organised by one of the DRIMON Partners, the Agricultural University of Tirana, with Professor Spase Shumka as a key actor. The conference hosted 140 participants from 12 countries, and covered a wide span of presentations and posters within the field of nutrient loads to lakes.

The DRIMON Project was presented among the key note speakers, with a paper on monitoring of transboundary waters. The presentation can be viewed here.

One of the Alblakes 2009-organisers, Professor Spase Shumka in conversation with a participant of Alblakes International Conference.

October 2008

DRIMON Presentation at the IV International Symposium on Transboundary Waters Management, Tessaloniki, Greece

DRIMON Partner Spase Shumka gave a presentation at the IV International Symposium on Transboundary Waters Management, 15th - 18^th October 2008, in Thessaloniki, Greece. The title of the paper and abstract was:

How far is the current status of the transboundary Shkodra/Scadar Lake from the IRBM requirements?

Read the abstract of the presentation here.

Read about the symposium here.

October 2008

The Research Council of Norway's Project Leader Seminar in Belgrade, Serbia

DRIMON Partners Dusko Mukaetov and Andrej Perovic attended the Project Leader Seminar of the Research Council of Norway's West Balkan Programme. One of the main topics of the seminar was to discuss scientific and popular dissemination of results from the West Balkan Programme.

September 2008

Stakeholder workshop in Skodra September 2008

The DRIMON Project organised a Stakeholder workshop in Shiroka Village, near the city of Shkodra in Albania, on September 11, 2008. A policy brief has been produced from the workshop; this is presently being translated to local languages and distributed among participants for comments.

The workshop hosted around 20 participants, including managers, policy makers, researchers and end-users of the lake and its catchment area from both Albania and Montenegro. In the workshop, the participants identified the main drivers, pressures, impacts and possible responses to management and policy measures related to the lake.  In addition, the institutional constraints for national and transboundary management was discussed. The focus was on water quality impacts due to agriculture, tourism, and urban expansion.

The sustainable use of Lake Skadar/Shkodra is highly important for the large number of users dependent on the lake for their livelihoods. The participants pointed out untreated sewage from growing urban settlements and tourism industry as the worst pressures, followed by the increased transport of nutrients from agriculture.

Policy Brief from the Shkodra Workshop in English.

May 2008

Stakeholder workshop in Prespa 30 May 2008 successfully completed

The DRIMON Partners in Macedonia, Albania and Norway hosted a Stakeholder workshop on the Prespa Lake on May 30.

A Policy Brief summarising the main results of the workshop has been prepared in English, Macedonian, and Albanian.

The main purpose of the workshop was to understand the current status of Lake Prespa management. The stakeholders were invited to express their interests, the challenges associated with the lake, especially in terms of water quality, impacts due to agriculture, tourism etc, integration and transboundary issues . The specific objectives were:

• To discuss the main water management problems, focusing on water quality and the factors responsible  for water quality deterioration in Lake Prespa

• To discuss, share, and update the existing practices and options for improving transboundary co-operation  in Lake Prespa

• To identify possible institutional mechanisms and policy instruments applicable to Albania and Macedonia (related to IWRM, transboundary co-operation)

The workshop hosted around 20 participants and the DRIMON partners obtained valuable information from the stakeholders. A complete list of participants will be prepared shortly.

Prespa Lake Stakeholder Workshop

May 2008

DRIMON Partners represented at the Balwois Conference with several papers

The Balwois Conference on "Water Observation and Information System for Balkan Countries", was held for the third time in Ohrid, Macedonia. DRIMON Partners were also present at this conference in 2006. A total of 290 papers were submitted to the conference in 2008.

A paper on transboundary lakes in the Balkan area was presented by the DRIMON Partners. This is the first paper from the DRIMON Project, presenting data from the monitoring in 2007. View the entire paper here.

In addition, DRIMON Partners also presented papers on other relevant issues, such as fisheries and transboundary management in the Lake Prespa (S.Shumka et al.) and on management strategies to combat desertification in Macedonia (D.Mukaetov et al.). All Balwois papers can be found at the homepage of the Balwois.

March 2008

Partners meeting in Podgorica March 2008

The DRIMON Partners had their first meeting in 2008 in Podgorica in March. The project is in its mid-term phase, and important decisions were therefore taken on how to proceed with the ongoing monitoring and investigations of the lakes. It was agreed to reduce the number of sampling sites in the lakes, since the 2007 monitoring showed that there was not much difference in concentrations between the sites. The expenses saved will be used to improved monitoring and investigations of the discharges to the lakes, both from rivers and from direct sources around the lakes. The purpose is to improve our understanding of the main nutrient sources to the lakes, which again will be useful when suggesting appropriate mitigation measures. For the same reason, measurement of e-coli is introduced to the project. In addition, sediment samples will be collected from Lake Prespa, to be analysed for phosphorus contents. Two stakeholder workshops will also be held in 2008, one in the Lake Prespa region and one in the Shkodra/Skoder region.

During the visit, the partners also sampled the rivers Moraca and Crnojevica, as shown on the photo.

22 October 2007

Mobility grant

Bioforsk has received a mobility grant from the Research Council of Norway, and researchers and students from Macedonia, Montenegro and Albania visited Norway during 15-21(27) October 2007. The overall topic for this study trip was to demonstrate and transfer knowledge linked to procedures and organisation of lake and river monitoring in general, with the Morsa catchment as study example in particular. The whole line of monitoring action was covered, from the selection of monitoring sites for specific purposes till dissemination of results. This means that the fellow visitors were introduced to Norwegian practical and theoretical work related to procedures and routines concerning water sampling in lakes and rivers, laboratory analyses (including methods, equipment and QA), data handling, presentation, and dissemination, including practical use of the data (how decision makers and end-users can benefit from monitoring activities). The week’s programme encompassed two full field days and three days of presentations/lectures. A boat trip was organised on Lake Vansjø, with the involvement of local/regional decision makers, as part of the official monitoring programme carried out by NIVA in the lake. Riverine sampling stations with automatic samplers and continuous data collection with sensors were also visited. Examples of abatement measures, such as treatment systems for sewage and agricultural pollution, were demonstrated in the field. The researchers and students also visited Analycen Laboratory in Moss, and the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate (NVE). It was felt that this opportunity, provided by the Research Council of Norway, to further develop research and cathment related transfer of knowledge between Balkan countries and Norway, represented a valuable step in the process of enhancing the quality and efficiency of surface water monitoring in Albania, Macedonia and Montenegro.
		Sampling in Lake Vansjø
		Lake Vansjø in October

Discussions at Bioforsk		Demonstrating sampling stations in Hobøl River All photos: Andrej Perovic

20 September 2007

Stakeholder involvement and transboundary co-operation

A literature review has been completed, wherein tourism was identified as one of the main issues that need to be addressed in Lake Skodra, and agriculture was seen as the main challenge in Lake Prespa. The field work in Lake Prespa will attempt to look at the impacts of agricultural expansion and intensification on the lake water quality and quantity.

A joint field visit of researchers from Norway, Montenegro, Albania and Macedonia was organized in May 2007. During this visit, the research teams conducted meetings with stakeholders, and visited selected sample villages in the Lake Skodra region. The researchers interacted with a few government officials in Montenegro. The researchers cross-checked the relevance of the project objectives and made some changes accordingly in the questionnaires for pre-testing. 

A questionnaire survey of 400 farms/households/tourists was carried out on Montenegro (200) and Albania side (200) of the Lake Skodra. The data compilation and analysis is in progress

Institutional analysis of the Tourism, Water, Environment and Agriculture sectors has started.