Working Group Monitoring and Assessment UNECE , Helsinki Finland

1. Working Group Monitoring and Assessment UNECE,Helsinki Finland Peter Rončák Slovak Hydrometeorological Institute, Bratislava

2. Purpose • Why, what are the reasons to make assessement of transboundary groundwaters

3. Why and who • Water Convention obligations • Measures to prevent, control and reduce pollution and overexploitation of waters causing tranboundary impacts • Ministerial Conference in Belgrade • Caucasus (3) and Central Asia (5) • All tohether information and data on 20 aquifers were delivered

4. Similarities • Water Convention implementation • Natural conditions • Transition to market economies • Political aspects • IWRM implementation • Low level of transboundary cooperation

5. Specific aspects • Some geographical natural conditions • Water management practices different between regions and from country to country within region • River Basin Cooperation

6. How it was prepared • Common structure based on the chapters of the questionnaire • Questionnaires from the relevant CACENA countries • Reports of the different programmes, projects

7. expectations • To be general, but to some expect region specific • Both politically and professionally acceptable and understandable • To introduce both strong and weak points of the CACENA region in transboundary groundwater management • To recommend measures for improvement and potential pilot studies, if desired

8. Gaps of preliminary assessment report • Questionnaires rather general, lack of specific information • Available reports more oriented on overall national water management than on the transboundary water resources

9. Expected discussion to assessment report on Almaty seminar • To check information in already delivered questionnaires and to ensure that information is relevant for combined areas in both countries • To get clear picture of groudwater use, impacts and measures to be taken • To complete chapters in the preliminary report by country experts

10. Recommendations and concusions in the assessment report • The groundwater resources are very dominant in the CACENA countries • As an urgent and priority, the improvement of the water quality and increasing of groundwater quantity to meet the basic human needs were recognized in the region • The direct water abstraction for water supply is the main use of groundwater in CACENA countries along with agriculture • Majority of the basic measures to improve the groundwater management have not been implemented so far • Scarced data are available from the groundwater monitoring programmes in the transboundary regions

11. Recommendations and concusions in the assessment report (cont.) • There is a lack of water management planning approach in the transboundary regions of the CACENA countries • Implementation or improvement of the good agricultural practices is also needed • There is a need to establish transboundary institutions for proper cooperation and data exchańge • Water management is a critical and important issue in the CACENA countries focusing on the national demands rather the transboudary ones • There is a need for the supportive policy and institutional reforms and capacity building for the regional or transboundary institutions • Coordination of actions and donors interests. There should be useful step to have pilot projects and case studies in CACENA region on monitoring and assessment

12. Message to Ministers in Belgrade „Groudwater resources are used mainly for drinking water supply. Therefore, it is necessary to protect and improve both groundwater quality and quantity in the CACENA region as precondition for the sustainability of the environment and the human beings security“.

13. Thank you