News & Media

Dubrovnik, 17 October 2012. The Sixth GEF Biennial International Waters Conference, as with prior IW Conferences, was a learning event for the GEF IW focal area held in the Croatian town of Dubrovnik from the 17th to the 21st of October. The general objective of the conference is to facilitate cross-sectoral and portfolio-wide learning and experience sharing.

Chisinau, 2/3 March 2012. The 5th International Conference Ecological Chemistry 2012 will be held on March 2-3, 2012 in Chisinau, Republic of Moldova. A conference announcement.

Kolontár, 4 October 2010. A dam at a Hungarian aluminium factory near Kolontár broke. Approximately 1.5 million cubic metres of alkaline red sludge and water were released with disastrous consequences: 10 people died, hundreds of hectares of agricultural land were contaminated. One year after these events, we collected information on the current environmental conditions in the area. As an ongoing effort, the Accident Prevention and Control Expert Group of the ICPDR continues its work to avoid or mitigate such disasters in the future.

Danube Basin, 29 June 2011. Danube Day 2011 will be celebrated on the 29th of June and calls on people of the 14 countries to get active in protecting water resources. This year, the annual Danube Day will receive a lot of attention, as it coincides with the adoption of the European Union (EU) Danube Strategy. This set of EU policies and initiatives will affect the lives of more than 100 million Europeans who live in the Danube catchment area and neighbouring regions.

Brussels, 18 November 2010. The European Commission published a communication on the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in the next decade. The paper outlines three options for further reform. The ICPDR contributed to it in the drafting phase.

Ajka, 15 November 2011. The redsludge accident of October 4 has generated a world-wide interest in the area of Ajka in Western Hungary. Since then, media attention has ceased. This article aims to provide an English summary of the measures that were taken to manage the accident since October 20.

Perth, 12 October 2010. The River Thamse was selected as the winner of the world’s largest environmental prize in 2010. It was presented to the Environment Agency at the Riversymposium in Perth. The Danube had won the prestigous prize in 2007.

Kolotar, 4 October 2010. The acute toxic risk deriving from the heavy metals in the red sludge is rather low, as their concentrations are rather low. However, the chronic toxicity threat is high.

Vienna, 24 September 2010. Two Serbian children have won the ‘International Danube Art Master 2010’ competition. The International Master is selected from the winners of the national ‘Danube Art Master’ competitions in 14 Danube Basin countries.