Until 1991, the methodological bases for data collection have been reasonably unified over the catchment, but lacking a lot of today's important aspects such are ecological character of the river and its tributaries, inventory of pollution sources, dangerous substances, socio-economic parameters, cost and benefit implications and similar. For the later period a lot of data are missing due to insufficient monitoring (financing, recent warfare) and weak institutional and legal control over use of water and land resources of the Sava River catchment. Many aspects of the river quality need scientific investigations. Furthermore, there is a need to link the knowledge of river quality state and environmental and health risk with pressures and their driving forces to propose efficient and beneficiary actions and measures for protection.

In this project specific tools based on the combination of chemical analysis and biological effect methods will be developed and validated for the pollution of sediments and impact on water biota. Geographical distribution of pollution will be identified and historical trends defined. Integrated prediction model about the behaviour of hazardous chemical substances will be integrated with the socio-economic prediction model to serve as a base for the elaboration of scenario, remediation measures and best practice techniques. For that purpose an expert data and information management system will be developed.