Europe - UNEP

Rhine River flowing through Düsseldorf, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Photo credit: Richard Hermann.
Switzerland respecting the Chatelot Falls
concession in the Rhone basin, the 1991
agreement between Norway and Sweden
concerning the salmon and anadromous salmon
fisheries in the Svinesund, the Iddefjord, and the
River Enningsdals tributaries of the Glama River
basin, the 1950 convention between the former
Soviet Union and Hungary concerning measures
to prevent floods and to regulate the water
regime in the area of the frontier river Tisza (in
the Danube basin), and the 1951 agreement
between Finland and Norway on the transfer from
the course of the Neiden River to the course of
the Gandvik River.
In recent decades a discernable shift away
from single purpose agreements towards the joint
management of international waters has
occurred. In some cases joint commissions have
evolved into institutions dealing with a range of
joint management issues. An example of such a
commission is the Finish-Norwegian Commission
that has taken a leading role in developing
integrated water resources management (IWRM)
plans for all the basins shared between Finland
and Norway. The first IWRM plan (concerning the
Tana River basin) was published in 1990 and
updated during the end of the 1990s.
The development of international
agreements throughout the last two centuries has
led to the development of a large body of
international agreements covering the majority of
international basins in Europe (see Map 6 (B)).
However, in some basins, basin-wide agreements
between countries have not yet been established,
which as noted in Chapter 1, potentially
increases their hydropolitical vulnerability.
Notable examples include Daugava basin
between Russia, Belarus and Latvia; the Neman
basin, shared between Russia, Belarus, and
Lithuania; the Dniester basin between the Ukraine
and Moldova; and the Dnieper basin between
Belarus, Russia, and the Ukraine.
3.2 REGIONAL INTEGRATION:
THE EUROPEAN UNION AND THE
UNITED NATIONS ECONOMIC
COMMISSION FOR EUROPE
The shift towards joint management of
transboundary waters (discussed above) is largely
due to the influence of regional organisations.
Regional integration has played an extremely
30 — Hydropolitical Vulnerability and Resilience along International Waters: Europe