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The International Association for Danube Research, or IAD, is an active network of scientists in the Danube River Basin of Europe.
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Currently the IAD board has country representatives in 12 Danube Basin countries, and has Several hundred members in all Danube countries form the network of scientists in all major fields.
Description
The IAD was established in Europe in 1956, and is a registered association under Austrian law.
The association is active in promoting ideas exchange and mobility between scientists to foster cooperation and knowledge transfer. In terms of scientific issues, since the 1950s major water management and environmental issues have been key priorities on the agenda of IAD, and science-based solutions are discussed and proposed.
Organization
The board of the IAD is composed of the president, vice-president and general secretary. Thomas Hein from BOKU Wien and WasserCluster Lunz has been the president since 2011; Ivana Teodorovic from the University of Novi Sad has been the vice-president since 2011; and Harald Kutzenberge rhas been the general secretary since 2006.
IAD has active Expert Groups in 12 topics covering major ecological and management fields.
IAD has an permanent observer status with the International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River (ICPDR). IAD members are active in the following ICPDR expert groups:
The names of the country representatives and the expert group leaders can be found at the homepage of the IAD.
Current activities
Based on a Danube river basin management plan provided by the ICPDR, IAD established to be a strong science-based partner in different critical issues at river basin scale, such as sustainable development of navigation using the large rivers as waterways, future development of hydropower, protection of biodiversity including issues of invasive and introduced species, various forms of pollution (e.g. nutrients, organic and toxic substances) and new model approaches for sustainable management solutions in multiple used aquatic environments. Detailed reports and joined statements can be found on the IAD homepage.
IAD members have been participating in the discussion and development of the “Guiding principles on sustainable hydropower development in the Danube Basin” and made major contributions related to the classification of sensitive ecological areas.
IAD members are active in the Danube Sturgeon Task Force, and also are involved in a number of EU and its EU Strategy for the Danube Region (EUSDR) project initiatives. The DSTF aims to coordinate and foster the conservation of native sturgeon species in the Danube River Basin and the adjacent Black Sea by the implementation of the Sturgeon Action Plan adopted under the Bern Convention in 2005.
IAD publishes the Danube News twice a year. It participates at the basin wide Danube Day.
IAD Conferences
Every second year an international IAD Conference is organized. A special issue about the 38th IAD conference in Dresden was published in the international journal River Systems in 2012. The 40th IAD conference was held in June 2014 in Sofia.
The next conference will be held in 2016.