1. Quarterly Report No. 1
4th Quarter of 2013
Peer Review Group
Janusz Kindler
Warsaw University of Technology, Poland
Sándor Szalai
Szent István University, Hungary
Henny A.J. van Lanen
European Drought Centre, Wageningen University, the Netherlands
Robert Stefanski
World Meteorological Organization, Geneva, Switzerland

2. The plan of presentation
 Introduction
 Assessment procedure
 General observations
 Snapshot detailed comments
 Recommendations
 Since the PRG report was distributed before the workshop, our
comments and observations will now be very short – let’s spent
this hour mostly as the beginning of discussion how to eliminate
the current problems and improve the further implementation of
the Programme
 Questions to PRG? How can we contribute better to your efforts?

3. Assessment procedure
 No permanent PRG Chair - each quarter another member of PRG
takes a Lead
 Janusz Kindler agreed as a Lead for the 4th quarter of 2013
 The Lead produces the first draft of the review report, which is
distributed to the other PRG three members for comments,
corrections and additional observations
 After several e-mail iterations, the final text agreed by all PRG
members is produced and submitted to the Programme Manager

4. General observations
 We are impressed by the comprehensive outcome of the
activities - in particular when we consider that the Programme
started in the course of 2013
 Review is based on milestone reports (total about 500 pages), not
on deliverables, but a good stepping stone towards them
 Some of the milestone reports do not agree with the activity lists
... they must be updated

5. General observations
 Integration of national contributions is often missing – it will be
of fundamental importance in the final outputs
 In the future a more concerted action of all partners is needed,
i.e. more work needs to be done jointly by all partners
 Integration of IDM CEE information system in the EC-JRC
European Drought Observatory (EDO) is a good idea, but
- principles and operational details must be soon agreed with
the national data suppliers
- Flexibility EDO to address specific regional requirements

6. General observations
 Some milestone reports are broad, but still miss the connection
with IDMP, specific for the region
 Coordination across scientific content activities is unclear
 The reporting quality of some milestone reports is not adequate
and should be improved

7. Activity lists and reports
 IDMP has a smaller budget, than the EU-Framework
Programmes (FP7, Horizon2020). Anyway, the main tasks are in
the Activity lists, accepted by the National Chairs of CWP and
the participants
 You can revise your Activity list, but you have to negotiate with
the Scientific Coordinator to modify it/them. It is not accepted
to change the topics of the Activity lists unilaterally

8. Activity reports
 PRG has the documents: Activity lists and Milestone reports
only. The evaluation of the reports is based on the Activity list.
A report can be very good, very useful, but if it has to suit the
Activity list
 The reports have a very substantial volume. Most probably, the
synthetizing reports could serve additional benefit for the
region, but they are quite often missing

9. Recommendations
 Drought Risk Management: Leading Concept?
monitoring drought hazard
(forecasting hazard)
current and (forecasted) impacts (probabilistic)
potential measures/actions to reduce impacts, to
build resilience, reduce vulnerabilities and risk
(stakeholder dialogue, hydrological modeling, impact modeling, exploration
risk management strategies)

10. Recommendations
 Drought Risk Management: Leading Concept?
monitoring drought hazard
(forecasting hazard)
current (and forecasted) impacts (probabilistic)
potential measures/actions to reduce impacts, to
build resilience, reduce vulnerabilities and risk
(stakeholder dialogue, hydrological modeling, impact modeling, exploration
risk management strategies)
Ongoing
drought
Future
drought

11. Recommendations
 Drought Risk Management: embedding of DSS
monitoring drought hazard
(forecasting hazard)
current (and forecasted) impacts (probabilistic)
potential measures/actions to reduce impacts, to
build resilience, reduce vulnerabilities and risk
(stakeholder dialogue, hydrological modeling, impact modeling, exploration
risk management strategies)

12. Recommendations
 Literature research: Demonstration Projects (WP5)
- existing knowledge
(demonstration)
- identifying gaps (targeted
experiments, demonstration)

13. Recommendations
 Stakeholders: agriculture & forestry
Other stakes (future)?
- navigation
- energy
- water resources
- health
- tourism
- ecosystem services

14. Recommendations
 Terminology
Differences
- drought
- aridity
- water scarcity
Drought types
- meteorological
- soil water
- hydrological
Use accepted Glossary (e.g. EC, WMO, UNESCO, IPCC, UN-ISDR, IAHS)

15. Recommendations
 Drought indicators
Common suite of indicators
- awareness indicators
- operational indicators

16. Recommendations
 CEE Information System: integration in European Drought
Observatory
Check long-term risk

17. Recommendations
 Activity design / Reporting
- Harmonization (e.g. climate information)
- Milestone Reports consistent with Activity List
- Formulate added value from existing knowledge for
IDMP CEE
- Develop common format for training courses
- Milestone Reports preferably ≤ 30 p. (excl. annexes)
- Clear requests to contributing partners (templates);
synthesize national inputs / reports

18. Recommendations
 Cooperation and Dissemination
International Cooperation:
- European Drought Centre
- EURO FRIEND-Water Low Flow and Drought
project / group
Transboundary dissemination (examples):
- EGU, various sessions, Vienna, 27 April – 1 May 2014
- FRIEND-Water 2014 Conf., Montpellier, 7-10 October 2014
- Leonardo HYPER Drought Conf., Prague, November 2014
- International Drought Conference, Valencia, 10-13 March 2015.

19. Recommendations
- Agricultural practices (incl. increase
WHC)
- Forest ecosystems
- Natural small water retention measures
- Drought Information System
- Decision support system
- GIS Based Communication Technology
Platform
- Remote sensing agricultural drought
monitoring
- Upgrading agricultural drought
monitoring and forecasting
- International Cooperation
- DM Plans, RBMPs ≈ EU-WFD
- Guidelines for DM Plans
- Capacity building
Concerted actions / synthesis