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Danube Basin, 29 July 2012. The official website of the International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River, www.icpdr.org, was re-launched just in time for the annual celebration of Danube Day on 29 June 2012. Over years, the old website had grown in content and became increasingly difficult to browse. The new design should not only allow the contents to become more accessible through an intuitive navigation, it also complies with state-of-the-art usability rules.

Danube Basin, 29 June 2012. Laughing children, tours with wildlife guides, open days at water research facilities: Danube Day is colourful and diverse. On June 29, you can join tens of thousands of people throughout the Danube River Basin to what has become the most successful river festival in the world.

Accidental pollution in the Danube River Basin can cause widespread damage to the environment, and endanger the health of local people and the state of local economies downstream. This was exemplified by the effects of the Baia Mare cyanide spill in Romania in 2000 or by the Hungarian redsludge accident at Ajka in 2010. The ICPDR is working to prevent accidental pollution and to improve response capability by compiling an inventory of all relevant "Accident Risk Spots".

Floods are natural phenomena. They can, however, turn into disasters causing widespread damage, health problems and even deaths. This is especially the case where rivers have been cut off from their natural floodplains, are confined to man-made channels, and where houses and industrial sites have been constructed in areas that are naturally liable to flooding.

The best way to protect and manage water is by close international co-operation between all the countries within the river basin – bringing together all interests upstream and downstream. All countries of the European Union are using a river basin approach for water management since the adoption of the EU Water Framework Directive.