The results of the Joint Danube Survey are now available. Over 140 different chemical determinands and biological parameters have been analysed and more than 40,000 laboratory results have been generated, making the Survey the most comprehensive one carried out in the Danube Basin so far. This joint venture of the Danube countries under the leadership of the ICPDR has proved the countries’ political will to cooperate and to jointly develop strategies to further improve the quality of the Danube River. In a nutshell, the results show that the quality of the Danube River has improved over the past few years and that the main river is in a better condition than some of its tributaries and side arms. Since the results and the findings deserve to be taken a closer look at, they make the focus of the present issue of Danube Watch.
The finding of the Danube Survey were due to be publicly presented in a press conference in Munich late in August this year, but the event had to be cancelled because the disastrous floods in the Elbe and the Danube Basins engaged all the available capacities of water and environmental specialists and officials and the attention of the general public – it was nature itself that dictated the momentary priorities.
Speaking of floods, I would like to remind you at this point that the ICPDR has already taken flood protection very seriously and has included it in its five-year Joint Action Programme (2001-2005). In a working group meeting on flood protection held in Budapest in September 2001, the experts agreed on the need to develop an action programme for sustainable flood prevention in the Danube Basin. The recent floods in Central and Eastern Europe have highlighted the need to speed up the design of the programme. Understandably, problems caused by the recent floods in the Danube Basin take up much of the space in the present issue of Danube Watch.
I wish you informative reading!

Martina Motlová
President of the ICPDR