INTRODUCTION

The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment Protection of the Republic of Belarus, the Ministry of Natural Resources of the Russian Federation, and the Ministry of Environment Protection of Ukraine have developed and shall approve the Rules and Procedure of the Interstate Dnipro Basin Environmental Data Base (hereinafter referred to as the ‘Rules and Procedure’).

The Rules and Procedure constitute an integral part (an Annex) of the Agreement on Cooperation in the Field of Management and Protection of the Dnipro River Basin (hereinafter referred to as the ‘Agreement’).

The main objective of the Rules and Procedure is to define the content and composition of information to be stored in the Interstate Environmental Data Base, the data maintenance and reporting formats, and the frequency of updating the data stored in this Data Base, with an ultimate objective of ensuring the sustainable monitoring and control of implementation of the Strategic Action Programme (SAP) (see Annex 1 to the Agreement) and National Action Plans (NAP) at the interstate level.

These Rules and Procedure take account of the international commitments of the riparian countries of the Dnipro Basin, which are parties to the UNECE Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes, as well as the commitments arising from the bilateral agreements signed by the riparian countries of the Basin with regard to the management and protection of transboundary water bodies.

Technical tools designed to facilitate the interstate exchange of environmental information comprise the National Environmental Data Bases (NEDB) , set up within the framework of the UNDP-GEF Dnipro Basin Environment Programme and accessible on-line (see Table below):

The Interstate Electronic Data Base (IEDB) for the Dnipro Basin also represents the on-line resource for exchange of environmental information.

IEDB address in the Internet: www.dnipro-ecobase.org.ua.

The IEDB stores comprehensive information on the ecological state of the Dnipro Basin and applicable environmental legislation/regulations. It employs powerful tools for the storage, updating, processing and reporting of this information in the formats designed to meet the requirements of key information users. Its ultimate objective is to provide the information support for the SAP/NAP implementation.

The IEDB and NEDB’s provide a basis for the interstate information exchange regime, designed to serve a number of purposes (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Outline of the Organisational Framework for Collection, Updating and Use of Environmental Information in the Dnipro Basin

These purposes include the provision of information support for:

- Interstate management bodies, both existing and contingent on the signing of the Agreement, responsible for the implementation of the SAP/NAP’s;

- Central and local executive authorities within the riparian countries of the Dnipro Basin;

- Other governmental agencies, public and private organisations (including small and medium businesses), institutions and industries, committed to the environmental rehabilitation of the Dnipro Basin;

- Governmental agencies and non-governmental organisations of the Black Sea Basin countries;

- International organisations, involved in the development of global and regional environmental programmes.

1. INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK FOR THE IEDB OPERATION

The parties responsible for the IEDB operation are:

The riparian countries of the Dnipro Basin shall ensure compliance with these Rules and Procedure and provide support for developing and maintaining the National EDB’s and information networks within the Dnipro Basin.

The International Dnipro Basin Commission shall coordinate those activities of the International Dnipro Basin Information Management Centre that relate to the operation and maintenance of the Interstate Environmental Data Base, contingent on the signing of the Agreement. The Programme Management Committee of the UNDP-GEF Dnipro Basin Environment Programme (hereinafter referred to as ‘the Programme’) shall provide overall coordination of these activities in the interim period preceding to the signing of the Agreement.

The Statute of each National Dnipro Basin Information Management Centre shall be approved by the order issued by a respective founding organisation.

The Statute of the International Dnipro Basin Information Management Centre shall be approved by the International Dnipro Basin Commission. To facilitate the operation of the International Dnipro Basin Information Management Centre in the interim period preceding to the signing of the Agreement, its Statute shall be approved on a temporary basis by the documented decision of the Programme Management Committee meeting.

2. THE IEDB CONTENT AND COMPOSITION

The Rules and Procedure provide for the regular updating of summary information on the following five thematic components of the IEDB:

Component 1: Surface Water Resource Quantity and Uses;

Component 2: Surface Water Quality;

Component 3: Pollution Hot Spots in the Basin;

Component 4: Biodiversity;

Component 5: Legislation and regulatory framework.

Component 1 – Surface Water Resources and Uses:

The regular updating of information will be provided for the following parameters:

- Locations of water monitoring sites (see Table 1, Annex 2 “Transboundary Monitoring Programme for the Dnipro Basin” to the Agreement);

- Flow rates (m³/s);

- Wastewater discharges into surface water bodies:

- Total volume of discharges (thousand m³);

- Total volume of wastewater discharged without any treatment (thousand m³);

- Total volume of insufficiently treated wastewater discharges (thousand m³);

- Total volume of wastewater discharges treated to the standard (thousand m³);

- Total volume of uncontaminated wastewater discharges that meet the standard without prior treatment (thousand m³);

- Quality parameters of wastewater discharges:

- BOD₅ in wastewaters discharged into water bodies (tonnes);

- Oil products in wastewaters discharged into water bodies (tonnes);

- Ammonium nitrogen in wastewaters discharged into water bodies (tonnes);

- Nitrate nitrogen in wastewaters discharged into water bodies (tonnes).

Component 2 – Surface Water Quality:

- Locations of monitoring sites;

- General physical and physical/chemical characteristics of water quality:

- Suspended solids (mg/dm³);

- pH;

- Oxygen regime:

- Dissolved oxygen (О₂) (mg/dm³);

- Mineral salts and ion concentrations in water:

- Chlorides (Cl) (mg/dm³);

- Sulphates (SO₄) (mg/dm³);

- Mineralisation (mg/dm³);

- Organic substances in water:

- Biochemical oxygen demand (BOD₅) (mgО₂/dm³);

- Nutrients in water:

- Ammonium nitrogen (NH₄) (mg N/dm³);

- Nitrate nitrogen (NO₂) (mg N/dm³);

- Phosphates (PO₄^3-) (mg P/dm³);

- Heavy metals in water:

- Copper (Cu) (mg/dm³);

- Zinc (Zn)(mg/dm³);

- Manganese (Mn)(mg/dm³);

- Total iron (Fe_total) (mg/dm³);

- Toxic organic contaminants in water;

- Oil and petroleum products (mg/dm³);

- Surfactants (mg/dm³);

- Integral indicators of water quality: Water Pollution Index (WPI).

Component 3 – Pollution Hot Spots in the Basin

- Locations of Hot Spots (see Annex 1 “Priority Investment Portfolio” to the Strategic Action Programme for the Dnipro Basin and the Mechanisms for its Implementation”);

- Summary characteristics of discharges (the same parameters as those included in the “Wastewater Discharges into Surface Water Bodies” and “Quality Parameters of Wastewater Discharges” sections of the Component 1), and

- The ratio reflecting severity of impact of a discharge on the downstream water quality, measured at a respective downstream transboundary monitoring site.

Component 4 – Biodiversity

- Protected areas in the Basin and their protection status:

- Map of protected areas;

- Description of protected areas;

- The Red Data Book species:

- Map showing distribution of flora species included into the Red Data Book;

- Description of flora species included into the Red Data Book;

- Map showing distribution of fauna species included into the Red Data Book;

- Description of fauna species included into the Red Data Book;

- Catchment conditions that have effect on biodiversity:

- Forest cover and cultivation ratios;

- Area of agricultural land;

- Agricultural land, broken down by land user;

- Area of restored land;

- Area of disturbed and disused land;

- Area of drained/irrigated land;

- Urbanisation rate;

- Total area of degraded land; and

- Other indicators, for which data are available and open for free exchange in all riparian countries of the Dnipro Basin.

Component 5 – Legislation and Regulatory Framework of Environment Protection, Nature Use and Water Resource Conservation

- Interstate agreements of the riparian countries of the Dnipro Basin in the field of environment protection, water and resource management, and exchange of information;

- Laws, agreements, conventions and framework documents adopted by the international community for managing the international waters;

- Other specific aspects of legislative and regulatory framework in the field of management and use of water resources and other related natural resources.

3. DATA FORMATS ELIGIBLE IN THE IEDB

The eligible data formats for the IEDB include:

1) Files with tabulated data:

a) TXT, CSV, SDF – text files with tabulation characters (the recommended tabulation character is semicolon);

b) DBF – (dBase, any version) – acceptable format;

c) XLS – (Microsoft Excel) – acceptable format;

2) Text files with narrative descriptions and individual text documents:

а) TXT (text files) – preferable format;

b) HTML – acceptable format;

c) DOC – (Microsoft Word) – acceptable format;

3) Files with the table field definitions:

а) TXT (text files) – preferable format;

b) HTML – acceptable format;

c) DOC – (Microsoft Word) – acceptable format;

4) Attached files:

a) TXT, HTML, DOC – (Microsoft Word) – text documents;

b) PNG, GIF – graphic files – maps, charts, diagrams;

c) JPG – image files – pictures;

d) PDF – document files and high-quality images (memory-consuming) for printing-out;

e) ZIP – archive files, containing documents and materials for downloading;

f) TAB (Mapinfo Table), MIF (Mapinfo Interchange Format) – mapping layers in the Longitude/Latitude projection, or ArcView shape-files.

4. THE INFORMATION UPDATING FREQUENCY

The National Dnipro Basin Information Management Centres (NIMC0 shall generate information specified in Section 2 that describes the state of environment in the Dnipro Basin within the Republic of Belarus, Russian Federation, and Ukraine, in their respective National Environmental Data Bases, and publish this information on their respective web-pages in the Internet every six months (before 31 May and 30 November of each successive year, including the year of 2004).

After publication on their national web-pages, the National Dnipro Basin Information Management Centres shall send this information to the International Dnipro Basin Information Management Centre by electronic mail and in the formats, specified in Section 3.

The International Dnipro Basin Information Management Centre shall store this information in the International Environmental Data Base and publish a synthesis report for the whole Dnipro Basin, prepared on the basis of this information, on the interstate web-page.