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Water Quality & Water Management
Our Services
Water experts of Umweltbundesamt provide consultancy services with more than 30 years of experience. We advise and support international institutions, national governments, regional and local authorities and companies. Our clients and partners include scientific and political institutions in Austria, the EU and beyond.
Through our national and international network and cooperation in European and international working groups we are in touch with the latest regulatory, scientific and political developments.
Key areas of expertise
- Water quality assessment of groundwater and surface waters
- Design of monitoring systems
- Development of databases, data management and reporting
- Groundwater body characterisation, vulnerability and risk assessment
- Ecological river assessments, river-floodplain systems
- Flood risk assessment, flood hazard and risk mapping
- Emissions from point and diffuse sources, emission modelling, design of emission inventories
- Groundwater- surface water interaction
- Laboratory services, isotope hydrology
- Water statistics
- Management of spatial data, spatial data analysis, cartography and mapping
- Design and implementation of GIS databases and web-based information systems
- Development of tailor-made tools for spatial data processing
- Implementation of INSPIRE for water-relevant themes (metadata, data harmonization)
- Implementation of EU water legislation
- Assessment of EU policy implementation across EU Member States
- Institutional capacity building
- International reporting obligations
Selected clients
European Commission (EC), EUROSTAT, European Environment Agency (EEA), Commission for the Protection of the River Danube (ICPDR), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Austrian Federal Ministry of Agriculture Forestry, Environment and Water Management and other national authorities.
Water Information System Austria (WISA)
The Water Information System Austria (WISA) is the central platform for data and information on national water management in Austria. It provides public access to data, maps and documents on the implementation of EU Water Directives such as the Water Framework Directive, the Floods, the Groundwater or the Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive.
Project duration 2003 - ongoing
European Water Initiative Plus (EUWI+)
Up to 2020, management plans for river basins and transboundary rivers will be implemented in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine under the leadership of a European project consortium headed by the Environment Agency Austria. The project is based on the principles of the European Water Framework Directive.
Project Duration: 2016-2020
Integrated water management for EU neighbouring countries
This project in the southern Mediterranean has the aim to establish sustainable water management strategies and practices and to develop and strengthen administrative capacities in Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine and Tunisia.
Project duration: 2016-2018.
Water Framework Directive - intercalibration Bulgaria
The main objective of this project was to support Bulgaria in the intercalibration of methods for the analysis of biological quality elements as required by the EU Water Framework Directive.
Project duration: 2012-2016.
NanoDESTINARA
Behaviour of selected nanoparticles on the biocoenosis of wastewater treatment plants
In order to decrease the knowledge gap on the behavior of nanoparticles in wastewater treatment the project aimed to determine the impact of the investigated nanoparticles (TiO2, Ag, CeO2, fullerenes) on the performance of municipal wastewater treatment plants.
Project duration: 2013-2014.
Support to the Environment Sector in Kosovo
The objective of this Twinning Project was to strengthen the administrative capacities in Kosovo regarding legal, institutional and technical aspects of environmental monitoring with a special focus on air and water.
Project duration: 2010-2012.
HESTIA – Harmonisation and Evaluation of Sampling Techniques in the Aquatic Environment
The objective this project was to compare different water monitoring methods for selected pollutants (PAH, selected heavy metals) to give a technical recommendation on how to perform a trend monitoring in the aquatic environment.
Project duration: 2010-2012.
WFDGW - The EU Water Framework Directive
Statistical aspects of the identification of groundwater pollution trends, and aggregation of monitoring results.
The objective of this project was to support the implementation of the Water Framework Directive (WFD) by developing and proposing algorithms for the aggregation of groundwater quality data at the groundwater body level for trend assessment and for trend reversal assessment.
Project Duration: 1999-2001