As a part of a 22-expert organization consortium – including universities, authorities, small and medium-sized enterprises and NGOs – the General Directorate of Water Management has won a subsidy to implement the DALIA project.
The project partners are mainly from the countries of the Danube basin: Hungary, Romania, Serbia, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Germany and Switzerland along with Ireland.
“Restore our Ocean and Waters” is one of the main missions of the European Union’s Horizon programme which is aimed to achieve significant improvements by 2030 in protecting and restoring ecosystems and biological diversity of oceans, seas and inner waters belonging to the EU, to eliminate water pollution and to decrease net emission of CO2 and other greenhouse effect gases – with the aid of quantifiable and measurable objectives.
The DALIA project, supported by the mission’s available budget, focuses on collecting and replicating good practices developed in the Danube River Basin, which stretches 39.000 kilometres across 10 countries and is home to a unique biological ecosystem, replicating them and widely disseminating the knowledge gained as a result of the project.
The activities of the project cover many thematic fields. Revealing, exploring the present situation of the Danube River Basin and its main problems and analysing 9 pilot areas are fulfilled in the frame of the Work Package 1. All pilot areas are on various points of the River Basin and the experts elaborate replicable solutions for the various environmental challenges to find the best one.
We can group these locations strategically into different categories such as: flood plains, source areas of sub-river basins, fish passes and sediment transport zones. Among the pilot areas, “Szigetköz” and “Bodrog River” can be also found. Meanwhile the first one is a lead in harmonizing the regional policies, the second one deserves an international attention in river clean-up https://petkupa.hu/hu_HU/, (https://tisztatiszaterkep.hu/). The other pilot areas are located in Romania, Germany and Slovakia.
In Work Package 2, we will further develop the DALIA methods elaborated in Work Package 1. In 2024, we selected 10 so-called replication areas through an open-call for proposals. The methodologies developed in the pilot areas of Work Package 1 will be adapted at these locations. The winners include not only EU countries, but also countries in North Africa and Asia.
Work Package 3 focuses on the public-economic transition attending the developments. It searches the answer for the question that how the elaborated developments can be operated in a sustainable way also after the implementation of the project.
In Work Package 4, we set up cooperation with other projects that with we can gain synergy effect in order to fulfil the objectives of Horizon Europe. Such a project is: “Restore4Life” (restoring wetlands in the Danube Basin), „EcoDaLLi”, „DaWetRest”, „Danube4All”, „EcoAdvance”, „Sundanze”, „EUROLakes”, „FERRO” and the connected programmes like the „Climate Picnic”, „COST Action CA22122 RethinkBlue”, „BlueMissionAA” or „Danube Water Balance”.
Work Package 5 aims at the wide dissemination of project results, mapping future application of the project, developing training courses, involving business partners and formulating policy recommendations for the EU and the mission related bodies.
Work package 6 covers project management tasks that are essential for the implementation of the project, which are among the priority tasks of OVF (General Directorate of Water Management). The next international project meeting will take place in September, in Bodrogkeresztúr. Prior to the meeting, the next Petkupa (cup of collecting plastic rubbish – river clean-up) event will be organized, in which DALIA will also participate with its own team.
The main objectives of the project can be summarized as follows:
- Developing 9 innovative, replicable pilot projects,
- Elaborating strategies for expansion of pilot projects,
- Involving 10 associated regions where the adaptation of pilot projects and the channelling the experiences gained during the implementation of the project will take place,
- establishing the “DALIA Knowledge Centre” and setting up a professional network,
- Elaborating training materials,
- Creating information materials to cover sustainable and innovative solutions.
The project, launched in January 2023, will take 48 months to complete and has a budget of EUR 8.5 million.