Preliminary assessment of the fourth payment request of Romania

                                   ladders
Casele Bisocii                     10                                                28               18
Bucsoita                           14                                                33               25-26
Fetig                              1                                                 40               26
Izvorul Negru                      5                                                 24               20
Total verified sub-projects        30

The Council Implementing Decision states that the new alluvial structures shall include ecological flow. The Council Implementing Decision also states, in the description of Investment 5. Integrated flood risk mitigation systems in forest river basins, that “The objective of the investment is to […] protect the environment and biodiversity through environmental measures, in particular those relating to ensuring fish migration and ensuring ecological flow.” In water management, ecological flow (also known as e-flow or environmental flow) refers to “water that is left running in a fluvial ecosystem or the flow that is released within it, with the specific purpose of managing the condition of the ecosystem”2 or “the dynamic movement of water through a river or stream, and its associated hydrological, geomorphological, and ecological processes.”3 Therefore, ecological flow is not a physical addition to an individual alluvial structure. In light of the contextual interpretation of this requirement from the Council Implementing Decision, it is interpreted that the new alluvial structures must ensure ecological flow in the river in which they are built. As described in more

detail below, the flow rate for the alluvial structures is included in the technical specifications of the project design and was assessed as satisfactory. On this basis, it is considered that this constitutive element of the milestone (ecological flow) is satisfactorily fulfilled.

The feasibility studies of the sub-project include the calculated water flow indicators for each of the alluvial structures with fish ladders from the table above. The table below shows where this evidence is found:

Sub-project                 Calculated flow rate indicators per alluvial structure found on:
                            Evidence No.                Page
Casele Bisocii              28                          46
Bucsoita                    33                          40
Fetig                       40                          34
Izvorul Negru               24                          43

The optimal ecological flow in a river depends on many factors related to the river and its ecosystem and there is no one universal minimal required flow.4 To verify that the proposed structures support the right flow for the existing ecosystem, the Commission analysed the Do No Significant Harm (DNSH) analysis for the sub-projects (Evidence Nos. 41 to 59). The table below shows where evidence of the works preserving water flow quality for the existing ecosystem is found. On this basis, it is considered that this constitutive element of the milestone, namely that new alluvial structures include ecological flow, is satisfactorily fulfilled.

2 Rodríguez Tejeda, R.C., Valdés, Y.M. (2021). Environmental and Ecological Flows for Sustainability. In: Leal Filho, W., Azul, A.M., Brandli, L., Lange Salvia, A., Wall, T. (eds) Clean Water and Sanitation. Encyclopaedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70061-8_115-1. 3 The Science Behind Ecological Flows. 4 Bhuiyan, C. Environmental flows: issues and gaps—a critical analysis. Sustain Sci 17, 1109–1128 (2022), https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-022-01092-4.

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