title: Building multi-country collaboration on watershed management: lessons on linking environment and public health from the Western Balkans.
abstract: Community-based watershed resilience programs that bridge public health and environmental outcomes often require cross-boundary, multi-country collaboration. The CRESSIDA project, led by the Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe (REC) and supported by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), forwards a resilience-focused approach for Western Balkan communities in the Drini and Drina river watersheds with the goal of safeguarding public health and the environment. The initial phases of this project give a contextualized example of how to advance resilience-driven environmental health goals in Western Balkan communities, and experience within the region has garnered several theme areas that require focus in order to promote a holistic watershed management program. In this paper, using CRESSIDA as a case study, we show (1) how watershed projects designed with resilience-driven environmental health goals can work in context, (2) provide data surrounding contextualized problems with resilience and suggest tools and strategies for the implementation of projects to address these problems, and (3) explore how cross-boundary foci are central to the success of these approaches in watersheds that comprise several countries.
authors.forename: Maryann R
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Cairns
authors.forename: Clayton E
authors.initials: CE
authors.lastname: Cox
authors.forename: Jose
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zambrana
authors.forename: Joseph
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Flotemersch
authors.forename: Alexis
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Lan
authors.forename: Anna
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Phillips
authors.forename: Gordana
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Kozhuharova
authors.forename: Mihallaq
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Qirjo
authors.forename: Marta
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Szigeti Bonifert
authors.forename: Lek
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Kadeli
mesh_terms: D063368:Balkan Peninsula; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources; D004782:Environmental Health; D006801:Humans; D011634:Public Health; D045483:Rivers