Review of activities on the VISFRIM project in the year 2019

Eastern Alps River Basin District has been coordinating, as  leader partner, the activities planned within the VISFRIM project (Vipava/Vipacco and Other Transboundary River Basins Flood Risk Management), funded under the INTERREG ITA-SLO 2014 -2020 Program (total project budget: € 2,940,441.15; ERDF funding: € 2,499,374.96; project duration: 36 months).

The main objective of the project is to achieve an efficient management of hydraulic risk in cross-border basins, such as those considered in the proposal (the international Isonzo and Vipacco river basins  and the inter-regional Lemene river basin ), by developing methodologies and technological tools for the implementation of existing flood risk management plans and their forthcoming update, as required by the Floods Directive 2007/60/EC by 2021.

In particular, the proposal was developed thanks to the support provided by several government bodies and local authorities, in order to take into account different points of view and interests about floods: the regions of Friuli Venezia Giulia and Veneto and the Metropolitan City of Venice as Italian partners; the Slovenian Environment Agency, the Slovenian Water Agency, the municipalities of Miren-Kostanjevica, Nova Gorica, Postojna, Šempeter-Vrtojba, Vipava as Slovenian partners.

The project activities began on  9th January 2019 with the kick-off meeting organized by the lead partner in Venice.

In the first period several teleconferences were organized, some plenary meetings (Nova Gorica, 21st March  2019 - Municipality of Nova Gorica; Venice Mestre, 21st May  2019 - Metropolitan City of Venice; Ljubljana, 30th September 2019 - Slovenian Environment Agency) and others minor coordination meetings were arranged to monitor the progress of activities in the various WPs and encourage collaboration between the various partners.

Members of the Consortium also took part in various dissemination events:

• the fifth Vipava Council meeting (Miren-Kostanjevica, 23rd January  2019), during which the Slovenian Ministry of Environment presented the VISFRIM project to the Council of Mayors of the Municipalities included in the Vipava river basin;
• a press conference, held in Nova Gorica on 21st March  2019, where the mayors of the Slovenian municipalities, consortium members, presented the structural flood mitigation measures planned in the project;
• a technical meeting about the implementation of the Floods Directive in the transbundary river basins shared by Slovenia and Italy, held in Miren-Kostanjevica on 27th March  2019, where technical representatives from the two Member States (Eastern Alps RIver Basin District, Friuli Venezia Giulia Region, Slovenian Ministry of the Environment) confirmed the importance of the VISFRIM project as a common essential tool to achieve the objectives established by the Floods Directive 2007/60 EC.

Activities under the WP3.1, aimed at supporting a shared flood risk management for the transboundary Isonzo and Vipacco river basins and the interregional Lemene river basin, are currently ongoing. In detail reports, dealing with flood modelling requirements and approaches applied in the context of the Flood Directive, were elaborated and later shared. Based on these references, each partner performed the collection and sharing of available flood related data for the above mentioned case studies; for these purposes specific ad hoc meetings were also organized (Lemene river basin: Portogruaro, 21st February 2019; Venice, 6th august 2019; Isonzo river basin: Šempeter pri Novi Gorici, 18th April 2019; Nova Gorica, 28th august 2019). Such data were finally uploaded inside GIS projects and will be then exploited for developing shared hydrological and hydraulic models, through which it will be possible to implement accurate flood simulations for hydraulic hazard mapping purposes.