A workshop on legal issues in international river catchments will take place on Jan 20th-21st 2011 in Dresden. The workshop will focus on the preventive flood protection measures and the relation between upstream and downstream riparians. Measures of preventive flood protection realised in the upper reaches of a river catchment have an impact on flood risk in the lower reaches. Since rivers know no boundaries, it is under the aspect of the solidarity of the upstream riparians necessary to operate preventive flood risk management beyond state borders.

Starting point at the workshop will be the existing legal instruments at national, trans-national, European and international level, that include regulations of the relationship between upstream and downstream riparians. It will be discussed whether the existing instruments are necessary, appropriate and sufficient to allow an optimal balance of interests between upstream and downstream riparians. Furthermore, the question of formal and informal instruments in cooperation will play a role.

Find more information here.