Integrated actions for joint coordination and responsiveness to flood risks in the Cross Border area

The project will focus on challenges of flood risk management via integrated actions for joint coordination and responsiveness to flood risks in the CB area. This area is vulnerable to climate change and its negative impacts, which needs adequate and coordination cross-border management. The territories covered by the project need to increase significantly their adaptive capacity to climate change, i.e. the international river basins of the cross-border rivers - Strymon-Struma, Nestos-Mesta, Ardas-Arda and Evros-Maritsa. The effective management of flood risks is of high importance and affects high number of population and surface area. The proposed actions will be directly oriented to joint coordination of five flood risks management plans (FRMP) for international rivers - two plans for Bulgarian territory (FRMPs of East Aegean and West Aegean) and three plans for Greek territory (FRMP of Eastern Macedonia, Thrace Water District and Evros river).

The project main objective is to strengthen the capacity of authorities to ensure effective, integrated joint coordination and responsiveness to flood risks in the Cross Border area. The project addresses different aspects of flood risk management in order to provide integrated results, the following sub-objectives have been defined:
(1) introducing a joint institutional approach for assessment, planning, prevention and fighting against floods of authorities;
(2) increasing the technical and administrative capacity of civil protection services for joint actions in the field of preparedness and response in cases of floods;
(3) introduction of effective information exchange structures and systems for flood risk assessment, mitigation and management;
The project will introduce the latest achievements in information systems and will add value by combining the capacity, planning and future development of national policies from the two countries in the field of flood risk management.

The objectives for improved administrative capacity will be achieved through provision of training facilities and joint trainings of first responders, supply of  equipment and training software, as well as elaboration of bilateral standards and operational procedures for actions in cases of floods. The introduction of a joint institutional approach for flood risk management will be achieved through establishment of a Joint Working Group for prevention and reaction in cases of floods. Introduction of effective information exchange structures and systems for flood risk assessment, mitigation and management will be achieved through development of data collection, analyses and assessment tools, as well as development of information tools and structures for flood risk mitigation via GIS functionalities, early warning systems, transfer lines, flood forecasting systems, development of a common regional database management system.