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Integrated water resources management is an important challenge in the countries with historic water pollution problems, enhanced by the occurrence of extreme climate phenomena, and by the insufficient stakeholder coordination and co-operation. In Romania, although the main problems that agricultural activities pose to water resources in the Prut river basin are the non-point sources, there are also major water quality issues related to the inefficiency of the municipal/industrial wastewater treatment plants. Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and Risk Assessment (RA) procedures identify the possible consequences of a planned/implemented activity, in order to facilitate the process of choosing wisely the best alternative. This study presents the development and implementation of a methodology for the quantitative assessment of the environmental impact and associated risk of the agricultural activities within Prut catchment. The integrated EIA and RA methodology considers environmental impacts determined for one category (surface water) by using representative water quality indicators for the case of agricultural pollution: biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), chemical oxygen demand (COD), total suspended solids (TSS), ammonia (NH⁺₄), total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphorus (TP). The study uses data collected during 2005 - 2008 from the monitored agricultural (and animal farms) in the Prut catchment. The improved EIRA methodology proposes the correlations of the impact magnitude with the wastewater discharges flows, and of the impact gravity with the pollutant concentrations. The results revealed high environmental impacts and associated risks within Prut catchment due to agricultural and related industrial activities. Furthermore, this integrated EIA and RA procedure presents the advantages of rapidity, critical environmental analysis and the potential of improving the decision making processes within sustainable water resources management.

Keywords: Environmental impact assessment, risk assess