Carasuhat Wetlands

The MICS Romanian Case study is led by GeoEcoMar with support from WWF Romania, and focuses on the Carasuhat Wetlands, located in Mahmudia on the Danube Delta. The citizen-science activities (water quality monitoring, bank stability, water level) will continue throughout 2021. During the winter and spring time, the frequency of the monitoring activities will be once per month and during the summer and autumn, the frequency of these activities will increase to two times per month. The monitoring activities are being performed with the support of FreshWater Watch (FWW) who have provided FWW Kits for the monitoring of water quality.

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Local context

Much of the Danube Delta including the Carasuhat Wetland has been impacted by anthropogenic activity, including drainage for agriculture and urbanisation. Drainage of the Carasuhat Wetland ceased in the 1980’s and regeneration was initiated by the Danube Delta Biosphere Reservation Administration (DDBRA), WWF Romania, Local Council Mahmudia.

Nature-based solution

Between 2014 - 2016 Carasuhat Wetland was created by connecting the Danube River to 924 ha of land. This involved dyke breaching and flooding of previously intensely managed land. The Wetland creation is part of the DDBRA. The wetland creation aims to:

Develop habitats and produce an area with high ecological value
Increase fish populations & biodiversity
Support sustainable ecotourism activities e.g. birdwatching
Reduce flood-risk by creating a large water retention area
Nutrient retention
Improve access to the Danube Delta

Co-design

Bilateral communications with the citizens and interested local authorities with GeoEcoMar and WWF Romania have been ongoing since the inception of the Carasuhat Wetland restoration project. Building on these discussions the Ground Truth 2.0 Light (MICS deliverable D4.6, based on Wehn and Pfeiffer, 2020) methodology was adopted to guide the best practice set up of citizen-science activities for monitoring the environmental and water quality. In total 9 people attended the co-design workshop. Four parameters were identified for monitoring on the Carasuhat Wetland: water quality, water level, dyke stability and biodiversity. Since then a training workshop has been run which involved teaching the citizen scientists how to use FreshWater Watch kits and set up the frequency and duration of citizen science monitoring activities.

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 824711.

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