22nd March – World Water Day

„Water has no taste, no color, no odor; it cannot be defined, art relished while ever mysterious. Not necessary to life, but rather life itself. It fills us with a gratification that exceeds the delight of the senses.”   Antonie de Saint-Exupery .

    

      International World Water Day is held annually on 22 March as a means of focusing attention on the importance of freshwater and advocating for the sustainable management of freshwater resources. The international observance of World Water Day is an initiative that grew out of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development.

      The 2005-2015 decade was declared as the International Decade for Action “Water for Life”. The primary goal of the ‘Water for Life’ Decade is to promote efforts to fulfill international commitments made on water and water-related issues by 2015. Focus is on furthering cooperation at all levels, so that the water-related goals of the Millennium Declaration, the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation of the World Summit for Sustainable Development, and Agenda 21 can be achieved. The challenge of the Decade is to focus attention on action-oriented activities and policies that ensure the long-term sustainable management of water resources, in terms of both quantity and quality, and include measures to improve sanitation.

      It is indubitable that water is one of the most important resources and vital elements. The efficient monitoring and forecast of any phenomena related to water is the basis of the natural resources rational use and of the economical development.

      This year's theme, "Water for cities: responding to the urban challenge," aims to spotlight and encourage governments, organizations, communities, and individuals to actively engage in addressing water quality through urban water management.

      The development of the cities is driven by the socio-economical and strategic forces that, sometimes, inefficiently calculated the necessary natural resources. However the determinant factor of their prosperity is the water supply.  Nevertheless water represents one of the most important, limited and vulnerable natural resource available at present.

      Increase of the natural disasters frequency and intensity pose serious challenge for the cities. Besides the natural disasters, such as earthquakes, the disasters induced by meteorological conditions, such as floods, droughts, and landslides, are also causing human and economical losses. More than that, the statistics shows that 70 % of the occurred disasters are meteorological and hydrological ones.

The city residents are less protected against these extremes, due to the high density of population, as well as its repartition in coastal areas. Affecting the country, the natural hazards may cause a regress in the development of the urban areas.

      Therefore, the cities that have a lack access to drinking water due to droughts have to develop adequate measures for water resources monitoring and drought impacts mitigation. The consequences of droughts in cities show that drought is not a problem related exclusively to rural areas. In case of water scarcity, the competition among the users may lead to disputes between individuals, as well as between authorities at national and international levels.

      The hydrographic network of the country consists of 3,600 rivers and small rivers with a total length of over 16,000 km. The main rivers are Danube, Put and Nistru, rivers Raut, Bic and Botna, located in the Black sea basin. On the territory of the republic there are 57 natural lakes and about 3400 water reservoirs, including 90 with a volume more than 1 million m³ each. The biggest water reservoirs are: Costeşti-Stînca (735 million m³) on Prut river and Dubăsari (277,4 million m³) on Nistru river. The main sources of drinking and industrial water are the main rivers of the country – Nistru (54%) şi Prut (16%). The  contribution  of the  small  rivers constitutes  23%,  and  of the other surface water sources – 7%.

      The Republic of Moldova is situated in a physical-geographical region exposed to two diametric opposite phenomena – floods and droughts.  The most significant were the drought registered in 2007 and floods in 2008 and 2010.

      In July-August 2008 Ukraine, Romania and the Republic of Moldova were affected by one of the most destructive flood over the last two centuries. In the Nistru river, the maximal flow of 5400 m³/s, partially accumulated by the Dnestrovsc reservoir, caused significant water table elevations up to 9 m. In the Prut river the water table elevation constituted circa 10,5 m, causing the breakage of dams and flooding of the localities and farm lands. Pagubele produse de inundaţii în vara anului 2008 a constituit 120 mln dolari SUA. The exceptional and catastrophic floods caused serious material damages that were estimated at 120 million USD, of which 65% - fixed goods, including houses, villas, markets, camps, sanatoriums and recreational areas; 20% – infrastructure, particularly roads; and 15% constitutes damages caused to farm lands (3318 ha of economic agents and 1514 ha of individuals).

      During the period May – July 2010, in the Western part of Ukraine, where the upper courses of the Nistru and Prut rivers are located, there have fallen extremely high quantities of precipitations. Their quantity exceeded the multi-annual average value for this period of the year and led to the water table elevation ip to 6 m. This led to inundation and sub-inundation of the farm lands, breakage of the damp on the Prut river downstream the Costeşti-Stînca reservoir and sub-inundation of several localities. The total estimated losses constituted 84.188 million MDL.

      In the Republic of Moldova, the only state authority that deals with the hydrological monitoringul, including the surface water quality monitoring, is the State Hydrometeorological Service. The information managed by the Service allows the notification of the decision makers in the process of mitigation of hydrometeorological risks. At present, the Service has a network of 46 hydrological posts located uniformly on the rivers.

      In 2007, in the frame of the Czech Development Assistance Programme the project “Surface Water Monitoring and Flood Prevention in the River Rǎut Basin“ was implemented and 5 automatic station on the Răut’s river basin were installed: on Răut river – Bălţi city, Jeloboc village; on Cubolta river –  Cubolta village, on Căinar river – Sevirova village; Ciulucul Mic river – Teleneşti city. These automatic stations are providing hydrological information in real time. The main advantage of the stations is that they allow a faster analysis of the information that reduces the risk of hydrological hazards occurrence. In 2010, there has started the implementation of the first phase of the Moldo-Czech project „ Flood Warning and River Monitoring System for the Prut River” with the support Czech Republic Government. This project is a continuation of the pilot project on Răut river. 

      The „Disaster and Climate Risk Management” project, whose implementation was started  in the autumn of 2010, was prepared in cooperation with the World Bank, foresees the installation of 10 automatic hydrometric stations on Nistru river.

      The implementation of the projects will allow the modernization of the hydrological monitoring on rivers through the implementation of a new warning system and through the improvement of the means of prevention and protection against floods that will enhance the provision of the public, local and central authorities with operative information, hydrological forecasts and warnings.