Description:

SAFETY4TMF aims to enhance prevention, preparedness, and disaster management activities of potential transnational risks related to Tailings Management Facilities in the Danube River Basin, via developing, testing and spreading applicable modelling, spatial planning, monitoring and coordination solutions, with special focus on improved local, national and macro-regional policies and optimised cooperation of multi-level governance actors, including authorities, municipalities and other stakeholders. Most TMF-related disasters concern multiple countries and actors through transnational water bodies, therefore prevention requires coordinated transnational action as well from a very early stage, which makes it vital to constantly improve the available capacities and communication of relevant stakeholders of the field. Besides authorities and other stakeholders, municipalities are crucial actors in these ambitions: as the local layer of the multi-level governance structures, they have a wide horizontal coverage in relevant sectors, and at the same time a direct and efficient access to local stakeholders and citizens. Besides, they are responsible for local spatial planning policies, presenting the most detailed urban/rural development measure where areas affected by TMF-related risks as well as safety measures can be most precisely described. Involvement, information and cooperation of stakeholders from all levels, harmonised multi-level governance instruments, and coordinated procedures for risk reduction and disaster management are all required for enhancing TMF safety, increasing the complexity of the topic and justifying the need for concentrated alertness, preparedness and rapid interventions, as well as harmonised and widely known operating procedures. TMF safety, being a topic with specific transnational relevance, requires additional policy harmonisation and cooperation across borders and on macroregional level as well. In addition to that, climate change and its consequences are key influencing factors affecting the risks related to TMFs, changing physical conditions and operational requirements of tailings deposits and altering potential disaster scenarios, therefore TMF safety has to be considered in relation to the relevant consequences of climate change, such as the increasing number of annual extreme weather conditions and heavy rainfalls. The SAFETY4TMF partnership represents a diverse group of actors that have a shared ambition to improve TMF safety. The extensive partnership covers 12 countries (AT, BA, BG, HR, CZ, DE, HU, MD, RO, RS, SK, SI) from the DRB as PPs (17) and as ASPs (11).

Main Goals:

Expected outcomes of SAFETY4TMF have important transnational features: • Improved cooperation, coordination and mutual understanding among national institutions of DRB countries both upstream and downstream; • Policy harmonization for enhanced national and transnational cooperation; • Building new capacities taking advantage of newest scientific knowledge, international, and national experience, boosted by enhanced, harmonized capacity building curricula and trainings; • Coordinated transnational capacity building events among countries for specific scenarios at various levels of intervention; • Improved coordination and application of harmonized measures for risk reduction and disaster prevention at transnational and national levels.

Work Packages:

Project work plan consists of 3 pillars:
1. Mapping and improvement TMF-related knowledge, cooperation ecosystems, policies, and procedures
2. Enhance transnational TMF-related safety improvement and disaster management capacities
3. Testing enhanced processes/procedures to improve safety for TMFs and share results within the DRB