In order to support the implementation of the Water Framework Directive, the European Commission proposed to establish a cluster on Integrated Catchment Water Modelling (CATCHMOD). The objective of this cluster is the development of common harmonised modelling tools for the integrated management of water at river basin or sub-basin scales, including the interface to the coastal zone, in order to achieve a selected number of 'European benchmark models' for the various integrated water management requirements at the European scale.
This requires a close cooperation and synergy between different ongoing EC projects funded under Key Action 1: Sustainable Management and Quality of Water that address comparable and complementary issues and research questions. TransCat is part of the cluster. The other projects in the cluster are:
Tisza River Project - Real-life scale integrated catchment models for supporting water- and environmental management decisions http://www.tiszariver.com
Euroharp - Towards Harmonised Procedures for Quantification of Catchment Scale Nutrient Losses from European Catchments http://www.euroharp.org
BMW - Benchmark Models for the Water Framework Directive http://www.vyh.fi/eng/research/euproj/bmw/homepage.htm
HarmoniQuA - Harmonising Quality Assurance in model based catchment and river basin management http://www.info.wau.nl/harmoniqua/
HarmonIT - IT Frameworks http://www.harmonit.org
HarmoniCoP – Harmonising Collaborative planning http://www.harmonicop.info
HarmoniRiB – Harmonised Techniques and Representative River Basin Data for Assessment and Use of Uncertainty Information in Integrated Water Management http://harmonirib.com
Harmoni-CA – Harmonised Modelling Tools for Integrated Basin Management http://harmoni-ca.info
Clime – Climate and Lake Impacts in Europe http://www.water.hut.fi/mailman/listinfo/clime
TempQsim – Evaluation and improvement of water quality models for application to temporary waters in Southern European catchments http://www.temqsim.net
The primary aim of the cluster is to enhance the complimentarity and synergy between the above projects, to avoid unnecessary overlaps in project activities and to help the co-ordination and dissemination of research results. The secondary aim is to provide support to EU policy in the area of developing strategies to facilitate the implementation of the Water Framework Directive in the field of basin management plans. Actions in support of the cluster are detailed below.
1. A steering committee, composed of the five project co-ordinators, will manage and oversee the implementation of the common tasks. The chair of the committee will be agreed at its first meeting and will rotate on an annual basis. The Commission will be invited to attend meetings of the committee. The committee will provide a report to the Commission on progress on the common tasks every 12 months.
2. A web site to support the clustering activity will be established. This will hold information about the projects and provide updates on research progress, dissemination events etc.
3. Where there are clear overlaps between the projects’ workpackages in terms of methodology or research objectives, more involved forms of collaboration will be explored. This is particularly relevant to the work being undertaken on various model domains (e.g. diffuse pollution, ecology, socio-economic issues, etc.) software tools for linking models, proof of concept, database design and harmonisation of terminology, evaluation of models performance, common sites for model and tools evaluation and testing.
4. Each of the above projects will extend an open invitation to the members of the other consortia to attend their project meetings and they will try, where appropriate, to arrange common meeting to discuss complementary issues.
5. Where appropriate the above projects will work to identify and exploit common dissemination and exploitation opportunities (e.g. publications). The terms of reference of the steering committee, including a description of how the common tasks will be implemented, will be finalised and delivered to the Commission in draft form, after the first meeting of the steering committee. The final version will take account of any comments of the Commission.