Second National Policy Dialogue on Drought Management in Ukraine was conducted on December, 12, 2014.

17 representatives of key Stakeholders: Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources of Ukraine, Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine, Ministry of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine, State Water Resources Agency, Ukrainian Hydrometeorological Center, Ukrainian honored with "Znak Poshany" Research Institute of Forestry and Forest Melioration named after G.N. Vysotsky, the National Institute for Strategic Studies, NGOs and research institutions participated in these consultations. National Dialogue was organized by GWP Ukraine and Ukrainian Hydrometeorological Center.

The event was held in the framework of the Integrated Drought Management Program (Programme), component for the Central and Eastern Europe region (CEE). The Programme is implemented by Global Water Partnership (GWP) and World Meteorological Organization (WMO), and aimed to the policy analysis and development in the field of management of natural (water, land and forestry) resources in drought conditions and collection of best practices.

In Ukraine the Programme has three directions of activities: analysis of national policy: analysis of national experience and development of droughts monitoring and forecasting instruments for agro and forestry sectors of Ukraine. The first national dialogue of droughts management in Ukraine was conducted in December 2013.

The Second National Dialogue was aimed to present the results of Programme implementation in Ukraine: new agroclimatic zoning of Ukraine territory under climate change, problems of forests in the droughts conditions. The Dialogue started from the movie about the Programme of Integrated Droughts Management in CEE region. The participants got familiar with and discuss the draft of Guidelines on development of Droughts Management Plan, which was prepared by GWP CEE. Although participants have watched the movie about practical solutions of Water Retention Systems. The programme of the event is available here.

Leonid Prokopenko, Deputy Director of Ukrainian Hydrometeorological Center welcomed the participants of the Dialogue. He highlighted the urgency of drought problems for Ukraine, and mentioned that during last years the droughts are observed in new regions, for example Chernigiv oblast, to the Polissya — Marshall zone; agriculture, drinking water supply and hydroenergy are significantly influenced by droughts. Yurii Kolmaz — Head of Sector for Land Resources of the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources of Ukraine, highlighted the importance of interrelation between actions to combat desertification and droughts management. He informed the participants about recent progress in global and regional policy framework developments, related to the droughts management policy, including the process of Post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals setting, especially the target #6 on access to water and sanitation for all and Target #15 “To protect, restore and support sustainable land ecosystems use, sustainable forests management, combat desertification and restore degraded land and soils, including lands, affected due to desertification, droughts and floods, and strive to achieve neutral land degradation in the world." Yurii Kolmaz informed participants that the preparation of National Action Plan (NAP) to combat desertification is ongoing, and deadlines are determined for April 2015. Yurii Kolmaz highlighted the importance of the momentum when there is need and possibility to use the results of the Dialogue and the IDMP outcomes in the preparation of NAP to combat desertification in Ukraine.

IDMP goals and objectives and the results of its pilots in Ukraine were presented during the first session of the Dialogue:

Anna Tsvietkova, GWP-Ukraine – Integrated Droughts Management Programme (IDMP): regional goals and objectives, participation of Ukraine;

Tetyana Adamenko, Ukrainian Hydrometeorological Center – Results of IDMP Pilot on agroclimatic zoning of the territory of Ukraine under climate changes;

Maksym Buksha, Ukrainian honored with "Znak Poshany" Research Institute of Forestry and Forest Melioration named after G.N. Vysotsky, Kharkiv city – Results of Pilot of forecast of droughts impacts on forests of Eastern part of Ukraine.

The second part of the Dialogue was conducted as stakeholders consultations to discuss the Draft Guidelines on preparation of Droughts Management Plans, which were developed by GWP CEE. The members of GWP- Ukraine presented issues related to the Guidelines, including presentations made by Anna Tsvietkova, UNENGO MAMA-86 “European Policy Frames and Principals Droughts Management”, and Andriy Demidenko presented GWP concept and definition of Water Security and Risks Assessment Management.

Possible contributions of Ukraine to the Draft Guidelines were discussed according to the list of its Annexes:

Annex I: Examples of the national methodologies for assessment of historical drought

Annex II: Examples of drought national drought indicator systems and evaluation methodologies

Annex III: Examples of the national drought classification, thresholds and early warning systems

Annex IV: Examples of national organizational structures to deal with drought

Annex V: Examples of national program of measures for preventing and mitigating drought

Annex VI: Examples of the national research programme supporting drought management

During the discussions participants emphasized that because of drought Ukraine loses most of the crop. Improvement of tools and methods for drought monitoring and forecasting is critical issue of the droughts management droughts, the droughts policy development needs the Government and politicians’ attention. It is necessary to improve technology of droughts data collection and analysis to provide information for decision making. Use of space remote techniques for droughts monitoring is one of the ways to improve the droughts knowledge and monitoring, at the same time improving the existing traditional monitoring and analysis of long-term continuous meteorological data provides important information about main climatic trends, which have to be properly taken into account in strategic documents, and Action Plans and / or Program on management of natural resources, including water, land, forests.

As part of the implementation of the EU-Ukraine Association, drought management issues should be considered in the context of EU water legislation, in particular it requires harmonization of the Water Code of Ukraine with the provisions of the Water Framework Directive (WFD), the Flood Directive, etc., by incorporating the principles of River Basin Management, Integrated Water Resource Management, introduction of planning cycles based on River Basin Management Plan (RBMP) and others. Additionally the rethinking and revision of National Security, including Water security concepts are needed.

Application of the Guidance on preparation of Drought Management Plans (DMP) depends on harmonization of water legislation of Ukraine with EU water framework, taking in mind that the DMPs must be relevant and be a part of RBMP, regarding to the WFD. Today in Ukraine a number of sectorial programs which include measures to combat water scarcity and droughts is approved, but there is a lack of systematic integrated approach to their design and implementation.

There is no coordination mechanism with a competence on droughts management. There is the Interdepartmental Commissions (leading by the State Agency of Water Resources) on setting the operational regimes for reservoirs of complex usage in the main River Basins. These Interdepartmental Commissions could be the coordination mechanism for drought management in Ukraine, if they will have a relevant responsibility/power. Moreover, taking into account specificity of droughts development in new regions that were previously quite humid – Marshes zone (Polissya), now there is a need in these areas to shift from drainage measures to water retention and moisture conservation measures and irrigation.

Currently the preparation of Program on adaptation measures in agriculture have been started, what was emphasized by representatives of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine and State Agency of Water Resources. It was proposed to deliver to the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources of Ukraine the recommendations and adaptation measures, developed by the IDMP Pilots on droughts and agriculture and forestry, implemented in Ukraine, for consideration and incorporation into NAP on desertification and drought prevention.

The results of the 2d National Policy Dialogue(NPD) will be presented in the NPD Statement for further delivering to the State Authorities by the end of 2014. Also based on the comments and information provided by the 2d NPD participants a Report on NPD and GWP-Ukraine contribution to the Draft Guidelines on preparation of DMP will be developed and send to GWP CEE.

For additional information, please, contact Anna Tsvietkova, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it