DAREFFORT Danube River Basin Enhanced Flood Forecasting Cooperation

The reliable and comprehensive hydrologic data is the basis of sound forecasting in any country of the Danube Basin. None of the flood risk mitigation measures serves better the protection of human lives and the social estate than enhancing the preparation time to avoid catastrophes that could have been caused predicted floods. The most cost effective non-structural tangible solution which highly reflects the solidarity principle is the improvement of forecasting capabilities on basin-wide scale.
The project will deliver an outstanding overview about the present status of the national forecasting capabilities where from the partners and the stakeholders could derive the common goals in order to develop the existing system in a comprehensive way. The mutual understandings will be recorded in a common vision of the partners. 
The partners jointly work out the policy recommendations to be submitted to ICPDR in the interest of the establishment of the Danube Hydrological Information System (DanubeHIS) which is a fundamental step towards flexible and sustainable data exchange. The main focus is to enhance the access to the recorded hydrologic and ice data and to provide harmonized distribution for all the countries in the Danube catchment. For this purpose for all partners interface software will be installed to provide standardized data services also as data source for EFAS.
The partners will collect the inputs from stakeholders and other interested parties in national expert workshops and results of professional discussions the international level by the Danube Forecasting Forums (DAFF). A pilot action will be executed for considering the possibilities of international capacity share. All the experiences during the project would be settled in a guideline and a publicly available e-learning material for benefit of all the users.

DAREFFORT project is a horizontal initiative to implement a flood risk mitigation measure in a joint and sustainable way on catchment level.