Efficient Practices of Land Use Management Integrating Water Resources Protection and Non-structural Flood Mitigation (PROLINE-CE)

The United Nations General Assembly declared safe and clean drinking water as a human right. However, recent studies have revealed that water resources are under increasing pressure, mainly due to land use and climate change. Within the Central Europe (CE) Region, the need for adapted and target-oriented land-use activities concerning the protection of drinking water resources and balancing conflicts of land-use pressure on water is evident. This challenging task is ideally tackled by transnational cooperation ­projects suitable for intensified cooperation across borders, such as PROLINE-CE.

The main objective of PROLINE-CE is the creation of a concrete transnational plan for the implementation of sustainable land use and flood/drought management ­leading to an improved protection of drinking water resources. This new integrated land use management approach foresaw the involvement of stakeholders and decision makers from the very beginning, thus raising their awareness for the issue. The demonstration of best practice examples (pilot actions) that were carried out in ­various geographic and thematic fields supports the stakeholder interest and decision processes even more. 

The conclusions gained from these experiences led to a Transnational Guide towards an Optimal WAter REgime (GOWARE), a Decision Support Tool, enabling the selection of best management practices to improve the drinking water protection and flood risk mitigation.