HIGH-TECH PLANNING tool helps ADRIATIC Text: Alex Horhager Photograph: Istockphoto The European Investment Bank promotes sustainable development of the coastline with a computer assisted planning system employing geographic information system (GIS) software. Sailing trips to Croatia are all the rage this year, evoking images of azure bathing pools in mountainside creeks and the thousand islands of the Dalmatian coast. But for how long can the Adriatic Sea remain clean, and the coastline and islands beautiful as they have been for eons? Economic development and the prospect of EU entry threaten to unleash forces that leave little room for environmental values. The international donor community assisting South Eastern Europe has seen this problem coming. Right from the start, the development of environmental safeguards has been built into assistance process. The European Investment Bank (EIB) has identified the effort to improve master planning of the Adriatic coastal region as a key initiative within the Regional Environmental Reconstruction Programme for South Eastern Europe (REReP). Under the aegis of the EIB, the Italian government has donated some EUR 600,000 toward the Adriatic Sea Environmental Master Plan (ASEMP) which was an initiative first proposed by Croatian environmental ministry. The project involves a partnership among the Italian government as donor, the EIB and the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) acting as technical advisor and implementing agency, and the Croatian Government as beneficiary. The Adriatic nation hopes the project will help it achieve environmental requirements for its bid to join the EU. Through its Venice Regional Office for Science and Technology in Europe, UNESCO will steer the operational and contractual phase of the project while the EIB provides expertise from technical specialists at its projects directorate. The Croatian Ministry of Environmental Protection and Physical Planning (MoEPP) has set a goal of ensuring sustainable development of the Adriatic Sea within the framework of the Barcelona Convention. This is to be achieved by developing a computer-assisted environmental planning tool over the Internet, and the identification of suitable pilot testing areas. The tool will allow: the development of a central system for storing, updating and integrating all existing planning data and to provide assistance in making planning decisions; the support of environmental master planning of the Croatian coastal zone to comply with EU environmental legislation; and the identification of projects for environmental improvement and sustainable development of the Croatian coastal zones. In sum, the ASEMP project has two essential elements: the development of the web-based planning tool and the identification of suitable pilot study areas and themes to test and calibrate it, with particular attention to its decision support system. The planning tool will allow inclusion of all currently used environmental indicators. It must carry all those indicators that apply to master planning projects in a coastal zone situation and it will contain sufficient information to support applications for funding from international financial institutions and other sources. At the same time, the tool will help Croatia to comply with the EU Directive on Coastal Zone Management and the EU Water Framework Directive.

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