The Danube River and The Western Black Sea Coast

Dr. Jürg Bloesch is a retired senior scientist and a hoanorary member of the International Association for Danube Research (IAD) for which he served as National Representative (1995-1998), President (1998-2004), Editor of Danube News (2006-2012) and mandatary for sturgeon conservation, hydropower, and navigation in the Danube River. Born in Switzerland and educated as limnologist (hydrobiologist) at ETH Zürich he worked at Eawag, Dübendorf (the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology) from 1970 till 2005 as research scientist and consultant (e.g. projects in Estonia, North-Macedonia, Romania, and Paraguay). He experienced sabbaticals in Canada (CCIW Burlington, 1978/79) and in New Zealand (Hamilton, 1987). Key activities focused on lakes (sedimentation, sediment traps, eutrophication, pelagic food web), rivers (benthos, fish), river restoration (hydromorphology), and river basin management. He published some 140 scientific papers and reports. As active member of 9 national and international professional associations and NGOs, he was and still is dedicated to environmental protection and nature conservation by bridging the gap between basic and applied science. Dr. Bernd Cyffka has been heading the Floodplain Institute Neuburg/Danube since 2006. He is country representative for Germany in the IAD (International Association for Danube Research) as well as head of the expert group ‘Floodplain Ecology’ in the same association since 2015. His research interests are in the fields of floodplain ecology, restoration, ecosystem services, hydromorphology and ecohydrology. He authored or co-authored more than 50 publications in indexed journals and many conference proceedings, book chapters and other scientific articles as wells as four monographs. Furthermore he edited or co-edited ten books. He was and is involved in several national and international projects, partly in leading position, mainly in the Danube Catchment and Central Asia. He also supervised several students at BSc, Msc and PhD level. Dr. Thomas Hein is full professor at the Institute of Hydrobiology and Aquatic Ecosystem Management at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna since 2017 and has been managing director of the research institute WasserCluster Lunz from 2008 to 2020. He was elected as president of the IAD (International Association for Danube Research) from 2011 to 2016 and is currently vice-president until end of 2021. He is an active member of several professional international organizations and networks. His research focus aquatic ecosystem – human interactions in riverine landscapes. He coordinated and was actively involved in several international and national projects, and established cooperation with many national and international organizations. He authored more than 120 publications in SCI journals and more than 100 conference proceedings, book chapters and other scientific articles. Dr. Cristina Sandu is a former researcher in freshwater ecology, member of the International Association for Danube Research (IAD) since 2002 and president of IAD between 2017-2021. Since 2009, she represents the IAD within the International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River (ICPDR), cooperating mainly on the Danube River Basin Management Plan, the key instrument for water management in the Danube Basin. Between 2012 – 2018, she coordinated the establishment of the Danube Sturgeon Task Force and the implementation of the sturgeon conservation program Sturgeon 2020 in the Danube and Black Sea regions. Her expertise comprises freshwater ecology, effects of anthropogenic impacts on river and lake ecosystems, sturgeon/aquatic biodiversity conservation and implementation of water policy in the Danube Region. She was involved in over 20 international and national research projects in the Danube Basin and has over 50 publications in indexed journals, book chapters and other scientific articles. Dr. Nike Sommerwerk is a senior researcher at Museum für Naturkunde - Leibniz Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity Science (MfN) since 2017 with almost 20 years of international work experience in human-ecosystem interactions and biodiversity research. Dr. Sommerwerk was the scientific coordinator of the UN project “Development of International Water Quality Guidelines for Ecosystems – IWQGES”; its results were adopted in 2017 by the UN Environmental Assembly, UNEA-3 and published in 2018. She gained her PhD at the Freie Universität Berlin (FU) and at the Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB) and published 10 peer-reviewed publications, 4 book-chapters, 5 position papers and guidelines.

1. Theory and Practice – Science meets Management Part 1: The Danube River and its recipient, the Black Sea 2. Hydrology and Hydromorphology 3. Sediment balance in the Danube River Basin and sediment load to the Black Sea 4. Water quality of the Danube River and Black Sea 5. Aquatic biodiversity in the Danube River Basin 6. The Delta, linking the Danube River and the Black Sea 7. The coast and the shelf of the Black Sea Part 2: Key Pressures and Implementation of Transboundary Water Management 8. Hydromorphological alterations and overexploitation of aquatic resources 9. Invasive Alien Species (IAS) in the Danube River Basin and the Black Sea Coast 10. Climate Change – specific consequences for the Danube River Basin 11. Transnational management of waterbodies in the Danube and Black Sea Region 12. Law and Politics: Protected areas in the Danube River Basin – implementation matters 13. The bottom-up approach: Stakeholder participation to strengthen nature conservation, protection and restoration of aquatic habitats Part 3: Visions for a sustainable future in the Danube River Basin 14. A Danube River Basin management perspective on sustainable development 15. Ecosystem Services along the Danube River and its Floodplains: Uses, Assessments, and their Potential for Policies and Management 16. The key role of floodplains in nature conservation: How to improve the current status of biodiversity? Part 4: Summary, Synthesis and Outlook 17. New concepts of science, technology and social behavior: Viewing the DR and BS as socio-ecological systems and consequences for political implementation in the Danube River Basin