Bulgaria and Romania will run a joint project to cut the risk of floods and drought along the Danube and better protect people from climate change, Bulgaria's Ministry of Environment and Water (MOSV) said.
The project is called "Preventing Risks Along the Danube". It has been approved under the Interreg VI-A Romania-Bulgaria programme for 2021-2027. It costs €17.5m, and 80% of that is a grant from the European Regional Development Fund. It will last 33 months.
In northern Bulgaria, the monitoring network of the National Institute of Meteorology and Hydrology will be updated, and a data centre will be built and equipped. The money will also pay for modern monitoring systems, technical infrastructure and nature-based solutions. The aim is to lower the risk for people, settlements and businesses in the border region.
The ministry expects the two countries to warn earlier about dangerous natural events, act to prevent damage and respond in a co-ordinated way. It says the network and the data centre will make it easier to produce forecasts, take decisions and plan action to prevent harm.
The ministry says national and local authorities will be better prepared and react in a more organised way when risks arise. People and businesses will get better information to help limit possible damage.
The project also plans to restore the natural functions of river areas. As a pilot, it will restore floodplain river terraces, where water will spread out and be held back naturally when river levels rise. The ministry expects this to improve the state of river ecosystems and the sustainable management of water resources.
On the Bulgarian side, the Environment Ministry, the Danube River Basin Directorate and the National Institute of Meteorology and Hydrology are taking part. The Romanian partners are the Ministry of Environment, Waters and Forests, the National Administration "Romanian Waters", the Technical University of Civil Engineering in Bucharest and "Alexandru Ioan Cuza" University in Iași.
At the end of August, the ministry stepped up monitoring of the Danube's waters because of continuing low water over the summer.