On 9-10 February 2004 an international workshop took place in Bucharest, Romania. The workshop intended to assist the International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River (ICPDR) and its member countries in carrying out the identification and designation of heavily modified water bodies in the Danube River Basin according to the Water Framework Directive (WFD).

EU guidance documents support implementation of WFD
For the purpose of a European-wide comparable implementation of the European Union Water Framework Directive (WFD), several EU guidance documents have been prepared on the different technical aspects of the Directive in the context of the Common Implementation Strategy (CIS). A guidance document on the Identification and Designation of Artificial and Heavily Modified Water Bodies (AWB & HMWB) has been prepared which can serve as a support for the provisional identification of HMWB required for the 2004/5 report on each river basin district to the European Commission.

13 countries of the Danube River Basin implement the WFD
The implementation of the WFD poses a particular challenge for international river basins such as the Danube River Basin (DRB). In the DRB, although only some of the thirteen basin countries are Member States of the EU, all have agreed to implement the WFD and to hand in the 2004/5 report to the European Commission. Given the international character of the DRB, the 2004/5 report to the European Commission consists of two parts. Part A is a roof report with information of basin-wide importance. Part B of the 2004/5 report includes the national reports.

Content of the workshop
In this context, this international workshop was part of the activities intended to assist the International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River (ICPDR) and its member countries in applying the EU CIS guidance document on HMWB to the Danube River Basin (DRB). The main focus of the workshop was the provisional identification of HMWB in the international DRB as part of the characterisation of the river basin district to be completed at the latest by the end of 2004. Against this background, this international workshop brought together experts from the DRB countries as well as other international experts in order to: 

• share their experience with the EU Guidance Document on HMWB & AWB and exchange information on the status of the provisional identification of HMWB in the DRB, 
• discuss and clarify possible technical criteria for provisionally identifying HMWB, 
• agree on the content of the HMWB/AWB chapter of the roof report (Part A of the 2004/5 report to the European Commission) and on a procedure for data and information delivery to the consultants and the ICPDR Secretariat.

Ecologic was responsible for the conceptual preparation, execution and analysis of the results of the workshop.