Participation of Stakeholders in the Kis-Balaton Project

Erzsébet SzékelyAssociation of Civil Organizations of Lake Balaton, Hungary

Photos:Tamás Ábel,Zsuzsanna Horváth-Papp, István Forgács

• Kis-Balaton is located on the Western part of Lake Balaton

• Its area of 14750 acres has an uninterrupted water-wildlife of large dimensions

• Kis-Balaton has been a nature protection area since 1951, now it belongs to Balaton Uplands National Park

• Kis-Balaton has been under the protection of Ramsar Convention since 1979 and it also belongs to the Natura 2000 habitat network

The Kis-Balaton Water Protection System

Historical background:- Constraction of Sió-lock in 1868 then

the complection of the south railway

- Draining and regulation of Kis-Balaton

- Intensive agricultural chemicalisation, increasing urbanization, holiday resort

- Lost its function of protecting the water quality of Lake Balaton

- Undesirable changes of water quality of Lake Balaton (algae bloom, siltation)

- Wetland reconstruction started in 1980: the Kis-Balaton Water Protection System

- Phase I, the Hídvégi-pond was constructed between 1981 and 1985

- Phase II, the constuction of Fenéki-pond was started in 1984 but it hasn’t finished yet

Old map

Photos: Istvan Forgács, Péter Koroknai

The Kis-Balaton Project

The Kis-Balaton Project was established for

realization of Kis-Balaton Water

Protection System Phase II. in 2007.

Objectives:

- Protection of water quality of Lake Balaton

- Protection and increasing the natural and ecological values

- Decreasing of the risk of floods

Participants of Forum:

Members of Pelso 2007 Consortium, Transdanubian District Water Authority, Balaton Uplands National Park, independent experts, engineers, economists, civil organizations, delegates of affected municipalities

Photos: Stella Czibulka Béla Szalánczy,Attila Kovács,

Concrete measure: We discussed and harmonized the different kind of interests and opinions of stakeholders to make the Feasibility Study of Kis-Balaton Water Protection System Phase II. on Forum meetings every third month.

Lesson learned: We could reach better results in the making of Feasibility Study with the involvement of stakeholders into the work.

Recommendation: With the involvement of stakeholders into the work of a project and taking their opinions and interests into consideration you can get better results and prevent latter conflicts.

Thank you for your attention!

Photos: Ádám Fáth, Péter Koroknai, Rudolf Horváth, Ádám Fáth, Tamás Ábel, Béla Szalánczy