Development of a coastal systems operations center for the institutional strengthening of coastal management along the Romanian Black Sea.

The Romanian Black Sea coast including the Danube Delta region has been severely impacted by erosion, habitat loss and pollution. The Romanian Ministry of Environment (RME) recently sought solutions to these challenges through Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) planning. In 2008, Black & Veatch (BV) was awarded a United States Trade and Development Agency supported contract from RME to complete a detailed analysis, costing and recommendations for institutional support, for their COASTEROSION program. This study, in particular, recommended Institutional Strengthening to support the program's Geospatial and Related Data Collection System (GRDCS). The Romanian government passed legislation in 2002 supporting ICZM, and in 2004 created a National Committee for the Coastal Zone (NCCZ) to oversee coastal development and management. The NCCZ is currently a voluntary and under-funded organization with limited legislative and operational support. As conceived, this organization should be the focus of and provide the vision for IZCM. However the organization requires important administrative, technical and reporting adjustments to attain its legislative mandate and goals. The BV COASTEROSION team recommended that development and integration be combined under a new Coastal System Operations Center (CSOC). The CSOC would become the critical Institutional Strengthening step for the COASTEROSION program and the effectiveness of the NCCZ. The CSOC would be an operational group with these functions: (1) Providing independent technical analysis including Regional Sediment Modeling (RSM) to support (a) evaluation of the current health of the Black Sea Coast, (b) development of long- and short-term coastal impact assessments (c) development and evaluation of possible alternatives for proposed projects (d) communication of results; (2) Acting as a resource to the NCCZ through the Executive Committee and its Work Groups, supporting new policy, practice, monitoring, and impacts, and for completion of the national strategy for ICZM; (3) Providing ICZM, CSOC, RSM, and GRDCS training and outreach resources for RME and other government ministries, as well as local and regional entities; (4) Managing day to day data operations, maintenance, and management of GRDCS. This paper reviews issues related to ICZM on the Romanian Black Sea and Danube River delta coast, and provide an overview of the CSOC for possible adaptation by other countries involved with ICZM, RSM, training, and communication.