International Roundtable on Integrated Shared Lake Basin Management in Southeastern Europe

The GWP-Med is jointly organizing with the Lake Ohrid Watershed Committee and with the support of GEF IW:LEARN (Activity D2), the International Roundtable on Integrated Shared Lake Basin Management in Southeastern Europe, 12-14 October 2006 in Ohrid, FYR Macedonia.
The Roundtable and the related Study Visit in Lake Ohrid are part of the activities within the Petersberg Process Phase II / Athens Declaration Process coordinated by the German Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, the Hellenic Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the World Bank, supported by GEF IW:LEARN and GWP Med aiming to build capacity and share experience on integrated management of shared water bodies.
The activities also contribute to the works of the Mediterranean Component of the EU Water Initiative (MED EUWI) as well as to the new GEF Strategic Partnership for the Mediterranean Sea Large Marine Ecosystems. The International Roundtable (12-13 October 2006) will address issues of integrated management of lake basins and the linkages to connected river basin, groundwater and coastal management; this would build on related ongoing work in the region and would be linked to the GEF supported Lake Basin Management Initiative. A series of Lakes i.e. Ohrid, Prespa and
Skhoder and the Drin River, creating an interconnected complex hydrological system in the South Western Balkan Peninsula, will be presented and discussed as case studies.