Norwegian Institute for Water Research

nivalogo

url: http://www.niva.no/en/index

The Norwegian Institute for Water Research (NIVA) is the Norway’s leading institute for basic and applied research on marine and freshwaters. The institute’s research comprises a wide array of environmental, climatic and resource-related fields. NIVA’s world-class expertise is multidisciplinary with a broad scientific scope. NIVA combines research, monitoring, evaluation, problem-solving and advisory services at international, national and local levels. NIVA has contributed to projects in over 70 countries including China, Sri Lanka, Chile, Venezuela, Ghana and Greece.

International activities at NIVA are organized in four areas:

  1. EU framework programmes for research – NIVA is currently a partner in over 20 projects in the EU Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development, such as EUROLIMPACS (A project on the ecological impact of climate change), REBECCA (Models for the environmental impact of nutrients in water), SARIB (New ecotoxicological methods for river basin monitoring), and STRIVER (A project dealing with water resource management in Europe and Asia. It gives advice on systems for evaluating various parties' needs and wishes).
  2. Participation in international forums – NIVA participates in a number of international forums. This network enables to build and share competence with other professional circles and with government agencies, and also generates research and development assignments. NIVA participates:
  • as an advisor for the European Environment Agency (EEA) through its Topic Center on Water. Among other things, they lead work on freshwater and contribute with their expertise on environmental toxins in marine environments.
  • as a Norwegian representative in EurAqua (European Network of Freshwater Research Organisations) and held the chairmanship during the period 2005-2009. Research institutes in 20 European countries cooperate in this network.
  • in UN/ECE's (United Nations Economic Commission for Europe) programme for monitoring long-range transboundary air pollution for 25 years.
  • in ICES (International Council for the Exploration of the Sea) and OSPAR (Protecting and conserving the North-East Atlantic and its resources) which lead efforts in monitoring the marine environment
  • as a member of the Norwegian UNESCO Commission for many years. The commission is an arena for support of research and education in developing countries
  1. Projects in development research – NIVA helps Norwegian authorities implement development aid strategies with  authorities in developing nations, to establish projects with Norwegian and multilateral funding, for instance the Nordic Development Fund, the Water Fund of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the World Bank.
  2. Advisory services – NIVA helps the private and public sectors in many countries to solve their environmental challenges and improve environmental supervision, as well as to improve cost-efficiency and productivity related to water.

The research manager at NIVA will be Dr. Sindre Langaas (PhD in Geography in 1995 at University of Oslo) with experience in Environmental governance, EU Water Framework Directive and Marine Strategy Framework Directive, transboundary river basin management, agricultural and waters. Dr Sindre Langaas is research manager for the section Water & Society at NIVA, with a broad experience from water and marine environmental issues internationally, in particular from Sweden and the Baltic Sea Region. During a period of more than 20 year he was carried out research and worked on issues connected to eutrophication, organization of water governance and management structures, implementation of EU Water Framework Directive and effective and fair steering of sectors contributing to eutrophication. Dr. Langaas has worked knowledge-based for several organizations ranging from UNEP/GRID-Arendal (UN), the Royal Institute of Technology (research), County Administrative Board of Stockholm (authority) to the Federation of Swedish Farmers (interest organization).