White Paper: Strategic Guidelines for Cyanobacteria Proliferation Risk Management
This deliverable is linked to Activity 3.1 and Deliverable 3.1.1. As described in the corresponding section, under the leadership of the APA (Portuguese Environment Agency) as the competent national authority for qualitative and quantitative water resource management policies, a white paper on strategic guidelines for addressing the risk of cyanobacteria proliferation will be drafted.
Specifically, these guidelines will advocate for the integration of prevention- and early detection-based systems and solutions. This approach allows for the introduction of solutions before environmental damage occurs, while simultaneously being more cost-effective and less restrictive for local economic activities and water uses. It will also propose improving the understanding of triggering parameters with high spatial resolution, enabling minimally invasive yet high-impact measures against the risk of cyanobacteria proliferation.
The main objective will be to incorporate the recommendations into the methodology associated with the fourth hydrological planning cycle foreseen in the Water Framework Directive (2028-2033 cycle). This will capitalize on the presence, as beneficiaries and associated partners, of the bodies responsible for drafting river basin management plans, or those that play a relevant role in their approval. The specific bodies and instruments to be influenced are listed, for each territory, in the last paragraph of A3.1.
