Over the last years, water scarcity and drought have become a serious problem in the Danube Region. These have significant impacts on agriculture, hydrology, livestock, water-based power plants, transportation, fires, human health etc. Despite the losses, people still consider it rare in this region and not an issue of high priority.

DRIDANUBE is shifting the perspective from crisis management to risk management. It established a new drought monitoring tool DroughtWatch to serve for surveillance, early warning and emergency response. Early detection of drought impacts will help the national authorities to forecast and respond during drought development faster and with higher precision. In practice it also means that if farmers can see immediate effects of drought and have relevant forecasts, they can take appropriate measures to reduce the impacts (e.g. more efficient use of water for irrigation). Moreover, using the information offered by this tool and the integrated drought management approach, governments may take necessary steps before disasters bring irreversible losses and invest into prevention.

National Hydro-meteorological Services and Emergency response authorities from the participating countries are already testing use of the project tools. The network of on-field reporters (currently over 1,000 in the region), who weekly report on drought impacts and contribute the system data, will also benefit from the tools and relevant forecasts.
We are working towards drought resilient Danube region and better cooperation of the authorities in the Danube region!
Here you may find more info about the project: http://www.interreg-danube.eu/approved-projects/dridanube