English - monitor ii

MONITORUL EXPRES
Press release in Romania (PP6), Oct 7th 2010
by Harald ODĂŢEANU
MONITORUL EXPRES
Yesterday, the meeting of several experts from seven countries relating to the European project
“MONITOR II”, which is financed by the European Union, took place at the faculty of silviculture
in Brasov. The main objective of “MONITOR II” is to establish a common methodology in regard
to the elaboration of regional risk maps for the involved countries, and a common guide on
methodologies for hazard risk mitigation and -management.
Participating countries in the project are: Austria, Slovenia, Italy, Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia and
Romania.
Austria, through the Federal Ministry for Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water
Management is the leader of the project.
The representatives of the partner institutions try to learn from each other experiences in
connection to elaborate hazard maps and to agree on a harmonized methodology for hazard
maps and contingency plans. At the end of the project hazard maps will be elaborated for each of
the test areas designated within the project. The following Romanian institutions are part of the
project: the National Forest Authority –Romsilva and the Institute for Research and Forest
Planning (ICAS). The Romanian test area is the basin of Putna River: Vrancea.
“We ensure expertise for sectors such as: improvement of degraded land, risk evaluation relating
to floods, landslides and windthrow, and the elaboration of hazard maps. But the project includes
all types of hazards. Our intention is the elaboration of guidelines comprising best practices and
common methodologies in order to present it to the involved countries. The basis for the
guidelines will be the analysis and evaluation of the test area, which will be extended to the
entire area of the involved countries. We selected the Vrancea area because it is the most
vulnerable area in Romania“, was the statement of Vica Petrisor, representative of Romsilva and
project coordinator for the Romanian part.
The total value of the project is 2.358.000 Euro, the Romanian budget amounts to 135.000 Euro.
85% of the budget is financed by the European Regional Development Fund, 13% will be covered
by each involved country and 2% by Romsilva.
Stefan Kollarits, the project team leader, mentioned the fact that the project will be very useful
for the involved countries, since an efficient hazard risk management system is extremely
expensive these days. “To implement new hazard risk management modalities, such as satellite
pictures, radars or efficient sensors, the project will help all partners to establish the most
efficient hazard risk management strategies”.
“At the end of the project – end of 2012 – the public authorities will be able to deploy the
developed standards and technical requirements for the adaptation and the development of
their hazard maps and contingency plans. At the same time, the results of this project will
establish a strong foundation for future projects, in which the identified hazards and risks might
be mitigated or eliminated by further investments” said Stefan Kollarits.
30.06.2010
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