The development objective of this contract was to support the Government of Bulgaria in developing the River Basin Management Plans (RBMP) and Flood Risk Management Plans (FRMP) necessary to ensure a water-secure future for the people, economy and environment of Bulgaria and to fulfil the EU water legislation requirements.
The specific objective of this TOR was to support the Bulgarian Government in overcoming the challenges related to preparing the 3rd cycle of RBMP. Tangible improvement had been made between the first and the second cycle of RBMPs, nevertheless, gaps remained in several fields: monitoring, water bodies classification, inter-calibration, biological status, chemical status, hydromorphology, etc. These gaps occurred in different ways in each of the 4 River Basin Directorates (RBD) that served as a basis for preparing the RBMPs. A gap analysis was conducted to precisely identify and quantify these gaps and to propose a way to partially or fully fill them. The gap analysis was conducted by using three main sources of information:
- Gaps identified;
- Gaps identified by the Commission evaluation report and
- Gaps identified by experts in the country.